019: Digitizing Africas Investment Ecosystem with Will Hunnam & Lanre Oloniniyi
b'Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi are the co-founders of Orbitt Capital. You can connect with them @OrbittCapital on Twitter. Close friends since business school, Will and Lanre were well-seasoned Africa private equity professionals. For years, they crisscrossed the continent in search of great companies looking for capital from global investors. But, this matchmaking process was fraught with difficulties and inefficiencies. On occasion, they\\u2019d work on a transaction, which was on the verge of closing \\u2014 only for the investor to walk away at the last minute. Or they noticed that the company didn\\u2019t interest the investor due to sector, geography, etc. The old-fashioned way of deal origination just wasn\\u2019t cutting it. Frustrated, they brainstormed how it could be done better \\u2014 and the idea for Orbitt was born. Orbitt gathers all the players in Africa\\u2019s investment ecosystem onto a single platform, instantly connecting the buy-side (investors) with the sell-side (companies) as well as invaluable intermediaries, like brokers, corporate finance professionals and lawers. With Orbitt, Will and Lanre have expanded beyond private equity into private debt and trade finance \\u2014 which is in hot demand among African commodity exporters. Will and Lanre speak candidly about the \\u201cpenny-drop moment\\u201d when refining their business model for Orbitt, why VC is a noisy space within the African ecosystem, and what excites their investors in Africa at the moment. Without further ado, here\\u2019s my conversation with Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi.'