GreenHouse Capital to invest $10m in tech expansions

Thirteen local technology start-ups are billed to benefit from GreenHouse Capital, a venture capital firm, which planned an investment of over $10 million for expansions.

The firm, which planned to invest the money in two tranches of $5 million each, said it had already doled about over $3 million to some viable start-ups in the country.

Speaking at an event to showcase some of the products and services offered by some the already invested start-ups in Lagos, a Founding Partner of GreenHouse Capital, Bunmi Akinyemiju, said the future is about virtual technology and no longer oil and gas, which is the reason the firm is investing in the tech start-ups.

Akinyemiju, who said the GreenHouse Capital is targeting 13 technology firms in Nigeria, said: “we have invested over $3 million out of the $5 million that we planned to invest in the first tranche. In all, we plan to invest a total of $10 million in the next two years.”

He explained that the venture capital firm decided to invest in them in order to support young entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas, which do not have the right funding to scale up.

“The list of top global companies today by market capitalisation, is made up of technology companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Gone are the days when oil and gas companies used to top the list and that is the direction of the world today, so we need to guide and support Nigerian tech start-ups in that global direction.

“We are investing big in technology start-ups companies, because the financial gain is going to be exponential in the future. A VC firm like GreenHouse only needs about three successful start-up companies, out of 20 sponsored companies to settle the amount of money spent promoting 20 tech companies, and still make huge turnover,” Akinyemiju stated.

Giving more insight into the planned investment, GreenHouse Capital Managing Partner, Nichole Yembra, said the mission is to promote and support tech entrepreneurs in Africa that have great talents but do not have the encouragement and funding to actualise their dreams.

She stressed that big entrepreneurs that are behind big brands like Uber, Google, Microsoft, among others, started as very small entrepreneurs and they got support to arrive at where they are today.