The African tech ecosystem mourns the passing of Nnena Nkongho, an African investor who championed diversity and excellence. Nkongho died on December 26, 2021.
Nkongho had over 15 years of experience in identifying, building, and capturing value for corporations and funds in Africa is the founding partner of Otundi Ventures, a pan-African early-stage fund. She was also a founding investor at Digital Growth Africa (DiGAME), one of Africa’s earliest (2016) institutional venture investing organisations, which has deployed about $35 million in the series A/B rounds of high-growth, tech-enabled businesses including Getsmarter (exited to 2U, Inc.), SWVL, 10X Investments, and Rhino Safaris Africa.
Prior to that, she was a founding team member at Nubuke Investments, a $75 million multi-strategy pan-African fund.
Outside investing, she briefly worked as an African c-suite executive via her roles as the Head of Business Development, SOLO Phone Nigeria, and Head of Strategy & Business Development, Etisalat Nigeria.
Earlier in her career, she spent seven years working at global financial services companies, Morgan Stanley (New York and Hong Kong) and at Merrill Lynch (London).
Nkongho was a Kauffman fellow, with an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.A. from Princeton University.
As a Nigerian-American, Nkongho spent her formative years in the US, with occasional visits to Nigeria, especially to see her grandmother in eastern Nigeria. It was these visits that opened her eyes to the transformation that was taking place in Africa, making her shift her focus to working in the African investment space
An ardent believer in the power of technology, she explained why she eagerly supports the African tech ecosystem, in this interview.
“My grandmother was a farmer in eastern Nigeria, but not a very [successful] one. She would wake up at the crack of dawn to fetch water. She would then carry large containers of water on her head to the rocky soil of her small plot of land. Over the past five years, I’ve seen technology change the lives of smallholder farmers like my grandmother. I’ve seen businesses use the mobile platform to offer value-added services—provide loans for better seeds, automatically irrigate land, and find better markets (and pricing) for harvested goods. Technology-enabled investing can transform lives. To me, that’s the most impactful thing that you can do.”
The African and global technology ecosystem mourns the loss of their colleague, friend, peer, and mentor. As a way of remembering Nkongho’s greatness and contribution to technology communities at home and abroad, TechCabal has been granted the opportunity to publish tributes sent to us by people who knew and worked with Nkongho during her lifetime. May her soul rest in eternal peace.
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