Backing the Unseen: Olu Oyinsan and the Quiet Rise of Oui Capital.

Olu Oyinsan likes to remind people that venture capital is not magic. It is conviction, repeated under uncertainty. That belief is not theoretical. It is written into one of the most talked about early stage wins in African tech: a modest $150,000 cheque that eventually turned into roughly $8 million, after the portfolio company, Nigeria’s Moniepoint, crossed the unicorn threshold.

The detail that stays with you is how ordinary the decision sounded at the time. Oyinsan and his co founder, Francesco Andreoli, were not planning to “go big.” Their internal cap for the round was $150,000, but they initially intended to wire $100,000. Then, the night before the transfer, Andreoli looked again at the numbers and urged one last push: max it out. The extra $50,000 was not bravado. It was a final vote of confidence when the company was still scrappy and valued around $12.5 million. Years later, that split second choice would become a 55x outcome and a rare headline in a market where exits are scarce.

What makes Oyinsan interesting is that his edge was never meant to be simply “picking winners.” He came up through institutions that train you to live inside the details. He began in commercial banking at Guaranty Trust Bank in Nigeria, then moved into consulting at Forrester, advising global technology companies on products and processes. Later, at Silicon Valley Bank, he worked closely with technology startups across sectors, helping them access debt, equity and mezzanine financing, an education in how venture stories are underwritten, stress tested, and funded in the real world.

That global exposure sharpened something more valuable than spreadsheets: pattern recognition. It taught him how to spot potential where others only see risk, and how to support companies beyond the cheque. By 2017 he was back in Nigeria, stepping into an investing role at Ingressive Capital. Yet the corporate ladder was no longer the point. Alongside Andreoli, a business school classmate, he wanted to build the kind of early stage firm Africa needed, one willing to say yes early, when the obvious answer in many rooms was still no.

Before Oui Capital, they had already tested the founder muscle together. Their earlier startup, WiFi Monkey, aimed to let neighbours share Wi Fi and split payments, a clever idea that ended abruptly after a cease and desist from a telecom giant. It was not the glossy Silicon Valley arc, but it was a formative one: a lesson in regulation, power, timing, and resilience, and a reminder that good ideas still need permission to operate.

When they launched Oui Capital, Oyinsan’s approach to investing was shaped by humility about how often investors are wrong, and firmness about what he believes can be measured early. He describes the work as triangulating proxies: the market must be real, the solution must make sense, and the team must be capable of execution. He is equally clear that backing a company is only half the job. Early stage capital without early stage support is incomplete. That is why Oui leans heavily into mentorship, offering guidance without trying to control founders, and why its second fund was deliberately framed around the idea of mentors, not just money.

Today, Oui Capital has grown into an early stage platform with a footprint across multiple African markets, backing startups across sectors including fintech, logistics, mobility and more, while positioning itself as a first call for founders at the earliest stages. (Business Insider Africa) For Oyinsan, the Moniepoint outcome is not a victory lap as much as a proof point: African venture can return capital, African companies can build scale, and early believers can be rewarded for disciplined conviction.

For founders across Africa, his story carries a bracing lesson. The rooms that change your life rarely arrive with certainty. They arrive with imperfect information and a choice to commit anyway. Build businesses that are durable, know your competition cold, listen more than you perform, and choose investors who will stay close when things get hard, not only when headlines appear. In ecosystems still building their exit pathways, Oyinsan’s journey is a reminder that the future belongs to people who can hold conviction in loneliness, and still do the work.

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About Oui Capital

Oui Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm backing bold & brilliant entrepreneurs building tech & tech-enabled companies that will transform Africa. We invest across the following themes: Digital Commerce (E-commerce & Mobility/ Logistics), Enterprise Software, Human Capital (HealthTech & EdTech) Fintech Let's build the future together, one entrepreneur at a time. Want to chat? Email hello@ouicapital.vc