The EchoVC Team
Eghosa Omoigui is the founder and Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners (a seed & early-stage technology venture capital firm investing in underrepresented founders and underserved emerging markets), EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund I, an Africa-focused early-stage tech VC fund & EchoVC+, an early-growth-stage Africa-focused VC platform in partnership with TPG Growth/TPG Rise Fund. Before this, Eghosa was with Intel for nearly 10 years and his last role was as Intel Capital Director, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies, where he acted as a senior investment professional focused on platform-agnostic consumer, web services and digital media-based investment opportunities in the US, EU & Asia. Omoigui also drove ICap's stage-agnostic investment focus on next generation semantic technologies, AI, ML, smart data, AR and the realtime web. Eghosa was personally responsible for developing supporting theses and sourcing investment opportunities in various companies including AdMob, Jaiku, Powerset, Facebook, LinkedIn, Teracent, Qik and Pandora.
Investments in the US and India include: Betaworks, StackCommerce (acquired), Talkable, Frid.ge (acquired), Sense Networks (acquired), Voxify (acquired), SmartZip (acquired), Yatra (IPO), and BuzzInTown (acquired).
Eghosa has advised SWIFT (the inter-bank consortium) on technology innovation for financial services (InnoTribe), is a member of the ASTIA Venture Advisory Board (an organization focused on mentoring and supporting women entrepreneurs), was a winner of the Moss-Adams/ASTIA Women Entrepreneur Mentor of the Year award, and is a Kauffman Fellowship and Pipeline Angel Fellowship Mentor.
Eghosa collects colognes, has a particular fondness for big dogs, and loves futbol and cricket. He attended law school at the University of Nigeria and University of Pennsylvania and business school at Babson College.
Tsendai Chagwedera
Principal & Regional Head, East Africa
Tsendai is a Principal & Regional Head, East Africa at EchoVC. Prior to joining EchoVC, Tsendai worked at TPG covering Africa private equity. His responsibilities included conducting due diligence on potential investment opportunities, leading deal execution, and monitoring portfolio companies.
Previously he worked at Emerging Capital Partners, an Africa-focused private equity fund based in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to Emerging Capital Partners, Tsendai was an Associate at H.I.G. Capital in Boston, where he completed growth private equity transactions in the technology space. Tsendai began his career at The Blackstone Group as an Analyst with the technology M&A team in Boston.
Tsendai graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.
Taiwo Kamson Ketiku
VP, Investments
Taiwo is a VP, Investments at EchoVC Partners and has over 10 years’ experience as a Finance professional in Investment Research and Investment Banking.
Prior to joining EchoVC, Taiwo worked at United Capital Plc for 6 years as an Investment Banker. Her focus was mainly on M&A Advisory and Capital Markets. In that role, she successfully launched and registered a Naira and Dollar (US$10M) fund for the asset management subsidiary of United Capital.
Whilst at United Capital, Taiwo was involved in the structuring of SME funds and other funds that are in the pipeline. She has also raised over US$1 billion in debt and equity for various corporates, facilitated M&A transactions such as the acquisition of the drink businesses of a listed consumer goods company, mergers of power companies, etc. Taiwo’s sector coverage for transactions include Banking, Insurance, Hospitality, FMCGs, Telecoms, Agriculture, Power and Oil &Gas in Nigeria and SSA.
Taiwo graduated from the University of Aberdeen Scotland with an MSc. in Finance and Investment Management and a BSc. (Hons.) in Banking and Finance from Covenant University in Ogun State, Nigeria.
Deji Sasegbon
VP, Platform & Portfolio Operations
Deji Sasegbon is VP, Platform & Portfolio Operations at EchoVC. With close to 10 years of experience building and deploying innovative technology in industries ranging from Energy, FMCGs, Legal, to Transport, Deji has coupled his love for novel technology with strong technical expertise and operational experience.
Prior to joining EchoVC, Deji worked as a Production Engineer in Total Exploration & Production Nigeria where he developed a first of its kind remote monitoring and collaboration centre geared towards increasing the operational efficiency of a $1B asset. While at Total, he built and implemented key metrics used to analyse oil and gas production, safety, and asset maintenance. Deji has also worked in Utilities, Oil Field Services, a top-tier Legal publication firm, and co-founded a number of startups.
Deji graduated with a doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London.
Eunice is Head of Incubation & Product Development at EchoVC Partners. Prior to joining EchoVC, Eunice worked on five different startups in varying stages, from conception to acquisition and combines a deep love of technology and design with a solid business and operations background. She has co-founded three startups: Flavorize (a food recommendation engine), MetricMesh (a cross-device, real-time behavioral advertising platform) and Studio Archcraft (an independent video game development studio). She was formerly the head of Network Development at Massive Inc, the in-game advertising market leader which was acquired by Microsoft and Manager of Corporate Development at Tagged, a pioneer in the social discovery space. Eunice graduated from New York University's Stern School of Business with a BS in Finance and a BS in Information Systems. She has also worked at JP Morgan Partners and Merrill Lynch.
Aima Nwafor-Ohiwerei
Senior Analyst, Research & Portfolio Operations
Aima is a Senior Analyst, Research and Portfolio Management at EchoVC. Prior to joining EchoVC, Aima worked at Singularity Investments for almost 2 years as an associate on startup investments within the Telecommunications, Media and Technology space, where she sourced investment opportunities, managed portfolio companies and Research.
Prior to this role, she was an entrepreneurship agent of change at Draper University and is part of the leadership team for Singularity University’s Lagos Chapter.
Before that role, she worked as a Tax associate at Ernst & Young (EY) for 2 years where she worked on Tax knowledge management, Tax advisory, and Tax compliance.
She holds a degree from Bangor University, Wales, a certificate of completion of the Kauffman Fellow’s Academy’s course on Venture Capital, currently in pursuit of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst certification (CAIA).
Usman Sotunde
Corporate Counsel, Legal, Compliance and Corporate Development
Usman is Corporate Counsel, Legal, Compliance and Corporate Development at EchoVC and has 4 years of legal experience as a commercial solicitor with core competencies in Corporate, Finance, Intellectual Property and Technology.
Prior to joining EchoVC, he worked in a top-tier law firm in Lagos as a member of teams that advised local and international clients that include Uber, Samsung, Honeywell, LafargeHolcim, LADOL, AITEO, FBN UK, Stanbic IBTC, IntelliFin, CSCS, NMRC and NSIF. He also worked as a legal counsel advising startups in Grace Lake Partners investment portfolio, including JCDecaux Nigeria, Dr. Express and Express Pharmacy.
He is passionate about technology and the African tech ecosystem. He co-founded a G2C tech-startup that is building compliance automation solutions to aid the ease of doing business in African markets. He has a graduate degree from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and a post-graduate certification in copyright from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School. He is called to the Nigerian Bar.