startups

We’ll invest $30m in SMEs in three years – Abiola – The Punch


The Operating Partner, Unicorn, Dr Wura Abiola, tells FEYISAYO POPOOLA that the company plans to invest $30m in Small and Medium Enterprises over a three-year period

When did you start the company and who are the people behind it?

Formally, we are in our second year of operation. The Unicorn team consists of professionals from diverse backgrounds that have over 200 years’ of combined experience investing, incubating and growing companies in Africa. We have seen what entrepreneurs struggle with and we decided to come together under one organisation to put forward our best ideas and experiences to assist entrepreneurs.

What services do you offer?

Unicorn offers multiple services to entrepreneurs across the continent. Our goal is to discover, engage, incubate, support, invest in and grow viable ideas and start-ups into technology-enabled Unicorns. For example, we have entrepreneurs that approach us with business ideas, and we work with them to understand their market and customers, develop their product or service, prototype it, and deploy it.

Others come to us with exciting businesses and we work with them to tweak the business model, optimise their operations and help them grow in Nigeria, West Africa, across Africa and eventually the world.

In addition, we support the entrepreneur to address all the seemingly small things that are actually really very important at the end of the day, like legal agreements, copyright, IP and trademarks so that the product or service is secure.

Did you see funding as a problem for SMEs? Was that why you decide to come up with unicorn?

Technology and technology-enabled early stage companies and SMEs in Africa face multiple challenges including execution, infrastructure and funding. All these challenges need to be effectively addressed for these companies to scale.

Unicorn was created to address these challenges and ensure that the early-stage companies we are nurturing and growing are institutionalised and adhering to best practice so that they are ready to attract funding.

Investors continue to see Africa as an attractive investment destination due to its attractive fundamentals; however, they will not invest capital if they do not see global best practices adhered to in companies on the continent.

Things have to be done right. Your research, your documentation, your corporate and financial governance must all be top notch to really earn the confidence of that investor so they can decide to invest and partner.

That is the experience my partners and I are bringing, having done this for myself for the last 25 years. My consulting firm, Management Transformation, is 20 years old and I worked in New York and London before then.  I am also on the boards of several publicly traded and private companies.

You need to have the structure, people, confidence and discipline, even as a start-up.  I always advise entrepreneurs to “start the way you mean to continue”. It may not be big but have some processes and policies, have a way to make decisions, have the right people around you that will support you and galvanise your energy. This is what Unicorn is about, bringing out the support together.

How many company entities are you working with right now that you are funding?

We are currently working with around a dozen companies, out of which two are foreign. We review many ideas and companies before deciding to nurture, incubate, accelerate and fund them. For every entrepreneur that goes through our process, even if they eventually don’t meet our criteria or proceed across our review stages, we would have provided value to them through training, mentorship, coaching and business planning.

We have operations in Nigeria and South Africa and plan to open West, East and North African hubs to work more closely to empower entrepreneurs in those areas.

The people you have in your portfolio now; do they just walk in or do you go out to look for them? And how many have you had to reject?

Our current portfolio was sourced through various channels such as referrals and networking. We are also receiving inbound enquires and this is before we even launch our programmes. We are going to have our official launch event in Nigeria in June. As part of this, we are going to have competitions and activities where inventors and entrepreneurs will showcase their businesses. We are also building a campus as we speak which will be opened on June 12.

We have rejected a lot, but it’s not a total rejection because we put them through part of our programme. We believe that if they have been diligent for three months of our programme, they will be better positioned to continue that journey themselves.

What sectors are these companies from?

They are mainly technology-enabled and consumer-centric companies that address the needs in Africa. For example, one of our exciting opportunities right now is in the logistics business. It is a tech-enabled, last-mile delivery business.

The truth of the matter is that Africa is a great motivator for business ideas. We have all the needs: the need for finance, power, education, infrastructure, etc. Providing these needs in an affordable manner for Africa positions compete well in the rest of the world.  So that’s why we have a lot of innovations and creativity in Africa and our job is to institutionalise disciplined growth, in partnership with the entrepreneurs.

How much fund are you about invest in SMEs and how will you get the funds?

Our plan is to invest a minimum of $30m over the next three years in the businesses we identify. Some of these businesses will only need ten thousand some will need over a million. Funding amounts will depend on the nature of the business, its current stage and its growth potential.

However, one of the most important things is that we would have done the work of fine-tuning the concept, the product, the business model and the operations of the company to a viable business we know would be able to attract additional funding as required.

So, where would you source for the funds?

It is not beyond our reach.

Launching the business on June 12, are you trying to leverage the Abiola family with the business to drive it?

You seem to forget who my father was. He was a business mogul, a philanthropist and finally a politician. We are going to remind people that my father was not only a politician. We will remind them that he was a loving father, a patriotic Nigerian, a successful businessman and our President.

Are you looking at the agricultural sector at all in the area of funding?

It is perfectly within our scope. We have a few projects in the agriculture sector that we are looking at. Agriculture globally has experienced significant advances due to technology. We are interested in poultry, vegetable farming and others, and continue to encourage entrepreneurs in this space to come forward.

The SME sector in Nigeria is dominated by women, many of who are not so knowledgeable but they are doing a lot. Do you have any programme for women empowerment?

If we have a bias in our company, it might in hiring as we tend to employ more females than males.  But seriously, we do not have a gender bias. However, we do our programmes to encourage women to develop skills and knowledge required to become successful entrepreneurs.

My view is that building significant capacity specifically among women entrepreneur population requires concerted long term and coordinated effort to break existing barriers on multiple fronts, starting with our educational system.

Copyright PUNCH.

All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: [email protected]

 

DOWNLOAD THE PUNCH NEWS APP NOW ON






READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.