Three years before Oui Capital, an early-stage African venture capital firm, invested $150,000 for a 1.2% stake in Moniepoint, managing partner Olu Oyinsan met Tosin Eniolorunda, Moniepoint’s CEO, and immediately knew there was something different about him.
“His understanding of banking technology stack and payment infrastructure was impressive. I knew he was up to something exciting,” Oyinsan recalled.
Convinced that Moniepoint’s $12 million post-money valuation was a bargain given its traction and financial discipline, Oui Capital joined investors like Global Ventures, Soma Capital, and Kepple Africa in Moniepoint’s 2021 undisclosed Series B round.
“We thought the team was incredibly strong in terms of engineering,” Oyinsan said. “We bet that superior engineering would solve the major problem at the time, which was high transaction failure rates and we were correct.”
A month before that round, Eniolorunda told TechCabal that Moniepoint was on its way to becoming a unicorn. Three years later, when it finally became a unicorn, Oui Capital partially exited its $150,000 investment, making $8 million—enough to return twice its first fund to investors.
There might not have been a more opportune moment for Oui Capital to return the fund— a rare feat for VC firms—as it might raise its third fund this year. The fund currently backs 22 startups and invests up to $500,000 in African early-stage startups.
TechCabal spoke to Oyinsan to understand how the firm met Moniepoint’s founders, made the investment, and built its first fund.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You invested at a $12.5 million valuation. How did you negotiate your entry terms, and what key elements of the deal worked in your favour?
The deal was undervalued. This was during the 2019–2020 boom when valuations were high. At the time, $12.5 million was a reasonable valuation given Moniepoint’s traction and growth rate.
The company was already doing between $700k and $1 million in revenue and valuation multiples were at an all-time high here. The two things that worked in our favour were that the company was relatively new to VC funding and we would have been able to set it on the path to multiple funding rounds. Also, the founders were very pragmatic and valued getting quality investors over valuation numbers.
You believed in Moniepoint from the first day. What gave you that conviction?
They had something no one else had, and they understood how to build for businesses. The team had matured through their earlier work, so this wasn’t day one of their journey—it was just a new direction.
Their DNA also matched ours. Back then, success often meant coming from an Ivy League school or being a YC-backed founder. TeamApt was among the first companies to reach this stage without YC, proving my thesis that great founders exist outside the conventional circles.
At that time, the major fintechs raising big rounds were YC-backed—Paystack, Flutterwave, Kuda, and PiggyVest. Many investors followed that pattern: if you weren’t YC, you didn’t get a high valuation. But we moved on conviction. We saw the opportunity, and we went all in.
I went beyond just investing—I did advisory work, helped create the first investment memo, and set up the data room alongside a Deloitte consultant I hired. The goal was to establish a funding trajectory: seed, Series A, B, and so on. Companies that skip stages often struggle. Even if you have Series B-level metrics, investors hesitate to write a big check if you’ve never raised capital before. That’s because investors play a role in passing companies along to the next funding stage.
At what point did you know that Moniepoint would be a fund-returning investment? Was there a specific point that changed everything?
We had strong conviction in this company from day one, we accurately predicted how big this could get. We had written in our initial investment memo that we believed that COVID-19 would change the game for Moniepoint. The company grew about 1000% during COVID followed by the cashless policies of the CBN that helped them grow about 100% every year. We knew we were on to something at this point. It was a matter of time.
You sold some shares in the $110 million Series C round. Why then? Why not hold for longer? And how did you decide how much to sell?
It was a concept of crystalising our gains while still leaving enough ownership to demonstrate our continued belief in the growth of the company to maximise future upside. We sold enough to return the entire fund and satisfy limited partners (LPs) while keeping the rest to enjoy the ride and the rest of the Moniepoint story.
Was there any pressure from LPs to cash out?
There was some pressure from LPs especially the Nigeria-based ones who are unfamiliar with venture capital as an asset class. For many of them, Oui Capital was their first investment in a VC fund. Most Nigerians gravitate towards shorter-term investments because of how rapidly government policy and economic indices sometimes change. Some of the global investors did not mind a longer holding period. But it’s our job as fund managers to find a good balance in the interest of our LPs and I think we did just that.
Returning a first fund is incredibly rare. If you had to distill your success into three core investment principles, what would they be?
Good portfolio construction. You can invest in a unicorn and still not return your fund. The key factors are: how much you invest, when you invest, the valuation at entry, and your ownership stake.
When writing a check, you should already have a rough idea of how it will play out. In our investment memo, we projected that the company would reach a billion-dollar valuation, and the expected return was mapped out. That’s portfolio construction: ensuring that if things go well, the outcome justifies the risk.
In venture capital, you decide whether to take riskier bets early or enter later with a higher amount. If you come in at Series D, most of the growth has already been captured. That’s why constructing a portfolio with the right balance of risk, time, and ownership stake is crucial.
Sincerely want the best for founders. There’s a difference between giving founders support and truly going above and beyond. Investors can hand founders a roadmap, but some will walk with them to the destination. When you genuinely care about their success, you do whatever is needed.
For example, instead of just writing a check and stepping back, we helped Monieoint raise additional funding to buy out an early investor who opposed the pivot to retail. I even interviewed a senior VP in my living room to help them recruit top talent. None of that was required, but it made a difference.
A hungry and ambitious team. Having a strong team around you changes everything. When we first decided to invest, our max cheque size per our portfolio model was $150,000. Initially, we planned to invest $100,000. But the night before wiring the funds, my partner ran additional analysis and concluded we should max it out at $150,000. The extra $50,000 we invested that night is now worth a third of our entire current returns.
That’s the power of having the right people. My partner’s decision significantly altered our outcome. A strong team increases your chances of making the right bets.
Some argue that smaller funds are easier to return. Do you think your $4 million fund size worked in your favor, or was it more about investment selection?
The short answer is yes, smaller funds generally have the potential to turn around because of their size. But remember that the majority of small funds do not return despite this fact. I think that it’s easy for managers of small funds to forget that we are not exactly in tech;we’re in the finance business. Understanding fund economics and the mathematics of financial outcomes is very key. Tracking these, you will quickly know if you’re moving in the right direction or not and have an opportunity to course-correct if not.
Beyond Moniepoint, which other startups in your first fund have the potential to generate outlier returns?
We do have several companies in our portfolio with fantastic returns on investment. Moniepoint is however the first to provide liquidity which is very important in many ways. I believe in each company’s potential to generate outsized returns.
How do you think about exit timing across your portfolio? Do you believe African VCs should be more aggressive in securing liquidity earlier?
I think exit timing is specific to each fund depending on the stage you invest, your fund strategy, and if you take minority or controlling stakes in the companies you invest in. For our fund, we only targeted a 1-5% stake in the companies we invested in Oui Capital Fund I and secondaries were a strong part of our exit strategy.
Given the state of Africa’s exit market, what’s the playbook for getting liquidity as a VC? Do you think more firms should be actively selling secondaries?
As I said earlier, secondaries are not necessarily the gold standard for VC exits. VCs ultimately look forward to exits through full acquisitions or IPOs. I believe this is still the goal for most VCs especially those who invest after pre-seed or seed. The goal is to fund and help build companies that we can pass on in M&As or to public markets. That being said, liquidity is better than no liquidity.
Your second fund closed at $12 million, well below your initial $30 million target. Was that a reflection of investor skepticism, macroeconomic conditions, or a strategic choice to stay lean?
A combination of everything. Also, we didn’t want to be raising for 3 to 5 years as you sometimes see in Africa. I think it negatively impacts returns because you invest better as a fund manager when you know how much you’re working with from the start, it helps you construct your portfolio better and gives you a better chance of success. This is why we decide to close our funds at 18-24 months of raising regardless of if we’ve gotten to our target raise. I consider myself a serial failure of some sort. I aimed for $5-10 million for our first fund and got $4 million. Aimed for $30 million for the 2nd fund, got $12 million. Maybe we can aim for $100m in the next one and end up at $30 million.
Failing forward and tripling our fund size every time. I think the difficulty in raising money in Africa is just very tough: lack of local capital, infrequency of exits till now, and general investor skepticism. Even more difficult is raising as a fund manager.
Moniepoint’s CEO highlighted your role beyond capital—advisory, governance, and narrative-building. How do you measure the actual impact of that hands-on approach?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We measure the impact by the result and sometimes the tangible feedback from the founders that have received the support. So we’re very proud of his testimonial.
Now that you’ve returned Fund I, how has that changed your relationship with LPs? Has it made raising a third fund significantly easier?
We’ll find out when we get on the road to raise again. But our LPs are pleased as expected and we’re happy about that too.
Looking ahead, will Oui Capital double down on fintech, or are there other sectors where you see Moniepoint-level potential?
Fintech has given us the most valuable companies on the continent when it comes to tech startups. We will continue to look for exciting fintechs to invest in. But again, the success of tomorrow is different from the success of today so we will keep looking at everything that is exciting and can deliver for us and our investors.
You’ve hinted at a third fund. What will be different this time around? Are you targeting a significantly larger fund size?
We’re currently deploying our second fund and our sole priority right now is finding the best companies and supporting them to give us a similar outcome as the first. We aren’t thinking too deeply about Fund III now even though conversations are going on. I’m not sure about the size but one thing we’re sure of is that we’re seed-stage investors and we would probably stay in that stage for the next fund so I don’t see us going out to raise a large fund now.
What’s the biggest misconception about venture capital in Africa that you think needs to be corrected?
That a company must become a unicorn to be seen as successful.
If you were starting Oui Capital today from scratch, what would you do differently?
I’m happy with how things have turned out. Probably, I should have started a year or two earlier.
