Wadson Ventures was born by African entrepreneurs and people involved in the funding eco system in Sub Saharan Africa who saw a huge gap in support given to African led start-ups and entrepreneurs. For over 5 years, Wadson Ventures has therefore been providing the much needed mentorship, incubation, acceleration, and funding to African entrepreneurs who are solving critical issues that affects Africans in their own communities and the region.
Our team members have experience in social entrepreneurship, banking and finance, risk management, research and development, product development, and strategy development.
Our investment looks keenly at the individual entrepreneurs- and provides mentorship, business networking and funding to outstanding and innovative businesses, mostly started by young people.
We are passionate, and unorthodox; are you ?
We are all about the people. You should be a bit crazy, unorthodox and willing to think differently. We back driven individuals and teams, willing and able to work with investors over the life of the investment. Teams should be committed to the business for the long term and ensure commercial success.
Although we are a long-term partner and a patient investor, entrepreneurs should have an idea of the key commercial or financial milestones required for the company to achieve meaningful growth in value to likely buyers or secondary financiers.
A good fit for us is a business that has received no or minimal investment from external investors yet. All investments will be in the form of equity or convertible debt. As a growing venture, we offer flexible amounts of funding because for us, we are in for medium to long term. Our investments are in the form of direct equity, convertible debt or revenue share.
We like innovation and hence we are keen to see entrepreneurs bringing new products and solutions to markets in new business models. Products and services that offer disruption to the status quo will be favored.
Growing, sizeable, addressable markets with plan on how to win gain market share. Products or services should have an identifiable and addressable market, supported by clear evidence that it is solving unmet customer demands or needs.
SMART INVESTMENT - We provide advice, insights from our network of world-class advisors and industry experts, and access to market - especially in the African market. We also provide hands-on support to our partners in key areas of business development, human capital development, legal issues, intellectual property, and PR.
We support entrepreneurs in sales, marketing and partnerships. We provide contacts to potential customers, and help in aligning the business with public policies. We offer knowledge in government relations. We help entrepreneurs understand their marketplace and realistic competition analysis. We also offer support in legal issues, intellectual property, Branding and Public Relations.
We closely work with entrepreneurs to refine and improve their product to market fit. We help in hiring high skilled technical contractors and in-house technical personnel.
We work with the entrepreneur to identify their financing needs and provide capital as required to bring to market their solution. We also connect entrepreneurs to other financial partners and capital providers. We help entrepreneurs improve their financial management capacity and understand issues of taxation.
Our team contributes time, expertise, capital, and connections to help founders gain access to the right people and resources to grow their business, their way..
Fill the form to contact us
+254 20 440 5739
32 Westlands Court, Mangu Close, Off Church Road
We seek to include both tech and human capacity in developing our portfolio for the newfund.
Wadson Ventures is seeking to launch its first open Fund.
Wadson Fund I will build on the experience of Wadson Ventures which has been providing support to early stage impact driven entrepreneurs in East Africa over the last 5 years.
The new fund will expand the reach and impact to more entrepreneurs.
Manifesto: Focus on the entrepreneur beyond just the business, Support beyond the financing, Locally founded startups.
A mix of high risk capital to high growth focused capital via SAFEs, Convertible Debt and Equity; and traditional stable SMEs via Debt and Revenue Share that will help reduce the Fund’s overall risk.
Early stage: 1st or 2nd institutional investor in Pre-seed, Seed, A and B and evergreen investments to maintain ownership
Sectors: Smart startups and growing SMEs in sectors solving economic, social and environmental challenges for masses of people. Key sectors- renewable energy, healthcare, hospitality, retail, agriculture and food security, education, consumer focused products, fintech among others.
Location: East Africa for first few years – markets that are growing fast.
