Oui Capital, an Africa-focused venture capital firm is open for business!

Oui Capital is a newly launched $10 million venture-capital fund that focuses exclusively on early-stage technology startups in Africa.

Pronounced as "We", Oui—a french word for "Yes"—is operating with the slogan "saying yes, one entrepreneur at a time".

The fund's goal is to bridge the financing gap between high-growth startups and available capital.

Led by the former VP of Investments at Ingressive Capital—Olu Oyinsan, Oui Capital would focus on pre-series A financing for startups doing work in these five major areas: Fintech, Mobility, Innovative healthcare, Education and Two-sided marketplaces.

Many of which play nicely into Olu's experience of investing early in fintech and mobility startups like Paystack and Awabike, respectively.

With Oui Capital, we will make funding available for early-stage technology startups on the continent. Africa is undergoing a transformation largely driven by technology—similar to the Asian boom of a decade ago which has created over 200 unicorns to date. It is pertinent that ventures like Oui Capital are available to finance this transformation to create wealth and impact.

Managing Partner, Oui Capital—Olu Oyinsan

He is not going in alone, his founding venture partner, Francesco Andreoli—a Swiss serial entrepreneur, and Techstars mentor noted that they would also be providing mentorship alongside early financing.

In speaking with over 100 technology entrepreneurs on the continent, we have realized that access to early stage funding is just one of the major setbacks of building for scale. This fund combines the solutions to the two most pressing challenges of African entrepreneurs today- access to funding and lack of high quality mentors/advisors.

Partner, Oui Capital—Francesco Andreoli

This mentorship would come at no additional cost to the entrepreneurs of their portfolio companies and they would be rolling it out under an initiative called The Mentor's Fund.

"Oui Capital has created a pool of mentors the world who are subject matter experts in critical need areas for young companies who also double as advisors available to its portfolio companies at no additional cost", read the official company statement retrieved by Benjamin Dada.

The fund has on its advisory board, a group of industry professionals including Gbenga Oyebode—Managing Partner, Aluko & Oyebode, a Lagos-based law firm, and Shyam Kamadoli—Managing Partner, AVG blockchain fund.

We know that Africa is attractive for investments, especially in tech. Because the country still has some technological mile (internet and smartphone penetration) to cover with an equally growing population (read as "market").

But how well have local venture capital firms performed in helping their portfolio companies to scale?

While Olu of Oui capital might be able to record success for his former firm's investment in fast-growing Nigerian fintech—Paystack, how replicable is this?

Interested startups can Pitch for a Yes by simply filling out the form. For a chat email olu@ouicapital[dot]vc