ANNOUNCING VP’S LATEST PARTNER — KAYODE OYEWOLE

Sometime mid-2016, just around the launch of Ventures Platform, I got a message from someone called Kayode. In that message, I could sense his passion for startups and founders. It was palpable.

He soon became one of our founding investment team members alongside; Fola Olatunji David and Mimshach Obioha.

Since then we’ve worked together building Ventures Platform and backing some incredible founders.

Fast forward to 2019, it has been an incredible year for us at Ventures Platform — we invested in 6 amazing companies this year, and Kayode was very instrumental in working on these deals and getting them through our IC. His pro-founder tilt has made a mark on our philosophy as a firm and he is a true friend and believer in our founders.

At the inception of Ventures Platform, Kayode worked as a Startup Advisor, where he supported our early portfolio companies to find product-market fit; working with some of them to grow their revenues to >$1.5M ARR in a short period. This involved spending hours reviewing products, figuring out optimal distribution channels and helping our teams fine-tune their sales pitch.

In his most recent role as Head of Investment and Portfolio Support, we have worked together to identify and back daring founders at Ventures Platform. I must say; finding and investing in the right startups is not an easy task, but Kayode’s insights and founder-centric style makes startup investing so much joy. His learning curve is borderline obsessive.

Kayode is a true disciple of first principles and in the time we have worked together, the passion, drive and conviction I noticed in 2016 has only gotten stronger and sharper.

Thus, today I am thrilled to announce Kayode Oyewole as a new Partner at Ventures Platform.

At VP, we are operators, backing operators — there is no substitute for being hands-on, rolling up our sleeves to support our portfolio companies and being available 24/7 for them. Kayode fits this mould, he relishes the thrill and so I am glad he gets to join me in charting the course at the highest levels of VP going forward.

Besides backing more bold founders and supporting our existing portfolio companies, a key goal for us in 2020 is to codify our lessons from all our past engagements and investments to enable us to better support founders and startups across Africa and beyond.

I am really glad to continue this journey with Kayode as Partner.