Could Olumide Soyombo’s Voltron Africa have been the continent’s most prolific local VC firm by 2022? Here’s a list and analysis of the 53 startups Voltron invested in.
Voltron Capital is a venture capital firm co-founded by Olumide Soyombo and Abe Choi.
Before coming together to found Voltron, Soyombo and Choi had collectively invested in more than 41 startups as angel investors; Soyombo had invested in 26 startups while Choi invested in 15.
Released in Q3 2021, Voltron is on a mission to “support extraordinary entrepreneurs outside of Africa to solve big problems in big markets.” His investment thesis is to back exciting founders in big markets, where big markets mean big exits, and early investment means big multiples.
With Voltron’s Fund 1, they intended to invest $20,000 – $100,000 in 30 startups based in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and North Africa. But he got over that.
If you have a good reputation in angel investing, you will earn a lot of income and your initial expectations will be widened.
Of the tons of entries Voltron received, they were able to meet with 500 companieswhich implies that two startups met every weekday.
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Including holidays, there were 260 business days in 2022, this after removing 53 Saturdays and 52 Sundays.
I asked Olumide how his team was able to achieve this and he explained that they have a very good signal. “Most of our business flow comes from founders we’ve backed and other co-investors,” says Olumide Soyombo.
By September 2022, Voltron closed Fund 1 having invested in 53 startups, a 10% acceptance rate reminiscent of what we see at top business schools. In 2016, Harvard Business School’s acceptance rate was 12%, Wharton 9%, and Columbia 18.2%.
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True to fashion, the 53 startups are led by founders who are not alone, with a total of 113. Thus, every startup Voltron invested in had at least two co-founders, one of whom is likely a technical co-founder. In February 2021, Olumide told Benjamindada.com who prefers to invest in a group of founders, with a technical co-founder. Here is an excerpt from that article:
What specific characteristics do you look for in the founders you invest in? Are you looking for technical founders?
I generally like teams better than solo founders. And I think technical co-founders are key. I prefer technical founders/co-founders because it reduces the amount of the raise. Imagine if you have to raise funds for your development and you are outsourcing to a dev shop or to India. That increases the amount that needs to be raised to prove viability. So yes, we like technical founders as part of the team.
Furthermore, they backed all but one of these startups at the pre-seed stage.
All of the startups Voltron invested in are based in seven african countries—Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal, Rwanda and Uganda.
The first three are members of the “big four,” so that’s to be expected. But it is interesting to find that Rwanda and Uganda made the list as they had very low start-up funding activity in 2022. According to our Africa start-up funding tracker, only one investment activity was revealed for start-ups with headquarters in Rwanda and three in Uganda.
The startups in Voltron’s Fund 1 are operating in 14 key industries which include Financial Services (43.4%), Crypto (11%), Education and Health (7.5%).
When comparing the proportion of investments in Voltron’s portfolio to the mainland average, they were completely in line with the rest of the industry when it came to investing in HealthTechs (7.5%). Closely aligned on EdTechs (5%) while very bullish on Crypto (3.9%) and fintechs (30%).
Over 30% of Voltron’s portfolio companies (portcos) have been accepted into major global accelerators such as YC and Techstars. Thus, attracting the attention of Tier 1 venture capitalists.
Meet the 53 startups in the first Voltron Fund
The 53 startups are:
