019: Digitizing Africa’s Investment Ecosystem with Will Hunnam & Lanre Oloniniyi

Young African Entrepreneur

Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi are the co-founders of Orbitt Capital. You can connect with them @OrbittCapital on Twitter. Close friends since business school, Will and Lanre were well-seasoned Africa private equity professionals. For years, they crisscrossed the continent in search of great companies looking for capital from global investors. But, this matchmaking process was fraught with difficulties and inefficiencies. On occasion, they’d work on a transaction, which was on the verge of closing — only for the investor to walk away at the last minute. Or they noticed that the company didn’t interest the investor due to sector, geography, etc. The old-fashioned way of deal origination just wasn’t cutting it. Frustrated, they brainstormed how it could be done better — and the idea for Orbitt was born. Orbitt gathers all the players in Africa’s investment ecosystem onto a single platform, instantly connecting the buy-side (investors) with the sell-side (companies) as well as invaluable intermediaries, like brokers, corporate finance professionals and lawers. With Orbitt, Will and Lanre have expanded beyond private equity into private debt and trade finance — which is in hot demand among African commodity exporters. Will and Lanre speak candidly about the “penny-drop moment” when refining their business model for Orbitt, why VC is a noisy space within the African ecosystem, and what excites their investors in Africa at the moment. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi.