A Londoner of Nigerian descent, Oyin Solebo has worn various hats in the investment and entrepreneurial world, but now she is based out of Lagos running the only Techstars accelerator programme active on the African continent.
Techstars is a global investment business that provides access to capital, one-on-one mentorship, and customised programming for early-stage entrepreneurs. Last year, it partnered ARM Labs, a Lagos-based innovation programme focused on helping fintech startups, to launch the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator, and the inaugural cohort graduated in March.
Each selected startup banks up to US$120,000 in equity funding, as well as access to training and a vast investor network, and applications for the second edition are already open. Solebo runs the programme from Lagos, and was a guest on the latest episode of Disrupt Podcast’s “The month in VC” series, produced in partnership with Katapult Africa, Kalon Venture Partners, Hlayisani Capital, and ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator.
Though of Nigerian descent, she is in fact London-born and bred, and completed her MBA at the London School of Economics. She then started her career at Goldman Sachs, where she focused on investing across asset classes for family offices in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“After about four years of that I left the corporate world saying “I want to be an entrepreneur”, but with no idea of what I actually wanted to do. So after about a year of dabbling in a few businesses I went back to the corporate world and joined a strategy consulting firm called Roland Berger,” Solebo said.
She helped the firm set up its Africa practice, based in Nigeria.
“That was my first time really working in Nigeria, before that I had just been back for holidays and Christmases. That was really my first opportunity to work on the ground,” she said.
Solebo then returned to the UK, and went back into family office management with some colleagues from Goldman Sachs, before then going back into entrepreneurship. She launched various businesses, the last one of which was Movemeback, a global members-only community connecting leaders, influencers and top talent to unique and exciting opportunities in Africa.
Movemeback still operates today, but Solebo left towards the end of 2022 to start her new role as MD of the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator, again based out of Lagos. Techstars is the largest pre-seed investor in the world, founded back in 2006 with three simple ideas.
“One, that entrepreneurs create a better future for everyone; two that collaboration drives innovation; and three that great ideas can come from anywhere in the world. So it is very fitting that we now have a programme in Africa,” Solebo said.
“Our mission is basically to enable everyone in the world to contribute to and benefit from entrepreneurs’ success. We do this by running accelerator programmes, through our venture capital funds, and also by connecting startups and investors and corporates in cities to build thriving startup ecosystems.”
The firm has so far accelerated more than 3,500 startups across 54 programmes, but the Lagos edition is the only African one thus far. Its last programme was focused on fintech and prop-tech, as ARM has verticals in real estate and investments.
“We actually ended up investing in a compliance tech, a data tech, and then two prop-techs and seven more traditional fintechs. For the next programme we are expanding that thesis, so we are sector agnostic. We’re really interested in companies that are using tech, data and intelligence across fintech, e-commerce, mobility tech, and talent tech – so ed-tech and HR tech,” said Solebo.
The next edition of the programme is planning on being even more pan-African, with the team travelling across Africa to identify startups to take part. Both Techstars and ARM take stakes in the selected startups, with companies benefitting from having a corporate so heavily involved.
“Beyond capital, ARM gets involved in other ways. The first way is really as a thought partner. I have a partner liaison who works at ARM who I work very closely with to talk about our investment thesis and talk about certain startups and elaborate on what that startup needs and who he can connect them with outside of the Techstars community,” said Solebo.
“They also provide mentorship. Individuals within ARM, which include their CEO, their deputy CEO, and the heads of their various business units, all participate as mentors, and in addition to that they also connect us with mentors outside of their network. The third way is through follow-on investments. They’ve just launched a new investment club with their high net worth individuals, and that is providing the potential for our startups to get follow-on capital.”
There are multiple benefits to taking part in a Techstars programme, from funding, to the programme, to the community. One aspect of that community is more important than others, she says.
“One of the most important parts of the community is their fellow founders. It is the fact that they spend three months together being completely vulnerable, sharing their business challenges and opportunities with founders who are the same stage of business as they are. Those founder relationships continue to exist beyond the programme,” said Solebo.
Given some of the negative news we’ve heard about investment these last few months, Solebo was asked whether she was still bullish on the future of African tech, especially as a relatively new entrant to the scene.
“I’m biased, obviously, but I still think it is super exciting. We are in challenging times, there has been this global reset, valuations have come down and investors are definitely being a lot more cautious, but I think it is still super exciting. If you look at venture capital going into Africa, both equity and debt, it is increasing year-on-year, but it is still tiny, we are still getting just a per cent of global funding. So I believe we are still scratching the surface and I believe it is still an emerging frontier,” she said.
