In venture capital, everyone has an investment thesis. It's a summary of ideas that guide how funds and individuals invest. However, as I wrote and brainstormed my thesis, I kept coming back to this question: should a thesis be a prediction or a conclusion?
In a world where things are changing so rapidly, is it wise to have a fixed thesis based on specific assumptions?
If there is no thesis, what then guides our curiosity as investors, and what guards us from impulsiveness? More importantly, how do we signal to the right founders and partners?
A thesis exists for a reason. It's important. It helps.
However, in my research and study, I found that some of the most successful companies in the last 30 years wouldn't have fit neatly into any fund's thesis because there was simply no frame of reference for them, or an incomplete one.
While there are superstar investors who are almost prescient in their ability to predict trends and foretell what the future looks like, and then design a thesis to match their predictions, most theses come up in response to fractal shifts in the world, and events that make it clear that the status quo can not hold.
If new technology or emerging problems are the question, the investor's thesis is the answer.
While this approach has worked, it's also fairly limiting. The more I thought about these questions, the more I found myself asking: what would it look like to pioneer, to truly predict the future without the limitations of a fixed thesis? What would it look like for theses to act as a series of questions that guide instead of fixed answers that constrain?
What if we embraced the scientific method and approached thesis building as coming up with a hypothesis, a way of exploring our curiosity about where we think the world is heading?
What if our superpower is that we don't know what the future would look like, because then we get to do the work of shaping it by funding different ideas and finding out what works?
I think it's so easy to become trapped in rigid fund deployment models that keep one from investing in the things with the most alpha because they don't fit neatly into a predefined thesis.
As I tried to synthesise all my ideas and put my thesis on paper, I realised everything I had written was an assumption; while I had data and research to back up my claims, I had no way of really knowing this would work, or that my bets were accurate. I've decided to follow the trail of my curiosity, see where it takes me, and what I can create along the way.
Steve Jobs said you can only connect the dots backwards, and I increasingly find that to be true.
My first chapter in venture capital began in 2019, when I co-founded Future Africa, a venture capital fund built to back startups solving Africa's most difficult problems. Education. Infrastructure. Finance. Power. We built an investment syndicate of over 300 angels across the diaspora and deployed more than $10 million into over 50 companies. It was one of the most formative experiences of my life.
In 2022, after 4 years of building Future Africa at breakneck speed, I decided to take a sabbatical. I had just completed the Newton Venture Program, and one thing I appreciate about the program is that it didn't just focus on technical expertise, learning how venture capital worked in theory, or learning from industry experts. We also learned about ourselves and became experts in ourselves. We took personality tests and debriefed the results with an expert, digging deep into our strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles.
Newton also had us create a fellow's vision, predict what the VC industry would look like in a couple of years, and plan how we would shape the VC ecosystem. It was a thorough education. We met multiple fund managers, all with distinct philosophies and unique perspectives.
Me on presentation day, young and filled with hope and joie de vivre!
At the end of the program, I knew two things: I wanted to build a fund, and I wanted to build a specific type of fund, designed in a specific way. I wanted to take a bet on myself and build it on my own terms.
Everything we learned showed that in VC, nothing is static. Things evolved in response to specific problems people noticed and built solutions to: fund models, investment theses, fund management styles.
Newton gave me the gift of digging deep and asking myself what I really wanted to build, and when I figured out where to begin, I always came back to one starting point: a fund for women. Built by a woman, built for women. A specially designed fund structure modelled around patient capital, meaning longer time horizons and founder-friendly terms rather than the standard venture playbook, solving structural issues and helping women grow, build and manage wealth.
This is my core vision, and four years later it hasn't changed. If anything, I am more bullish on it. I want to build for the woman nobody, hardly anyone, is funding.
The question that remains is, what types of companies are these women building? What ideas do I want to fund?
The Problem
Over the past few years, I've seen multiple women lose control of their businesses because they partnered with the wrong investor. The stories are hauntingly similar.
A woman starts a wonderful consumer business from scratch, bootstraps it, or gets a small amount of funding from friends and family, and scales it. At some point, it becomes clear she needs external capital to scale further, and it's at this point that a couple of things happen:
She can't find anyone to invest in her business because, even though she's doing really well and has strong revenue, her business isn't seen as venture-backable or likely to reach the scale of returns venture capitalists expect. Typically, these are consumer companies that sell physical products, either directly to consumers or through retail channels.
She might not be big enough for a private equity firm to take her seriously at that point either, so she has no choice but to keep bootstrapping, watching competitors who manage to raise capital whiz past her, sometimes using the very idea or product she pioneered.
She meets an investor willing to put money in but wants an unreasonable level of ownership and control. Because of desperation, a lack of information, and a lack of viable alternatives (usually a combination of all three), she ends up taking the money and, more often than not, losing control of her company.
She's so afraid, because of all the stories she's heard, that she doesn't even consider taking external capital and commits to keep bootstrapping rather than risk losing her company. The business dies because it can't keep growing without external capital.
Who funds women building consumer product companies, besides angel investors and the few specialist consumer funds? Who is the first cheque in? Who is in their corner, providing advice and support as they grow and scale? Who is designed and set up to fund the woman building an exciting condiments business that has the potential to go global from day zero? Who is funding the founder building the next Topicals?
I want to build for the woman in the margins, starting her journey, the one mainstream capital sources aren't yet fully designed to support.
I started noticing this gap at Future Africa. I built a program that invested over $1 million in female founders. Many consumer businesses applied, but we had to turn most of them away because we didn't have a clear mandate to invest in them.
That's the gap I keep running into: strong founders, real demand, and few funds that understand the context of the problems that they are solving or are designed to invest in and support them.
Why Now
Even though Artificial Intelligence is the hottest thing right now, I believe it is setting the stage for something even more monumental.
The world is hungering for real goods: products that address unique, niche problems consumers and buyers face. I believe we are in what we'll look back on and call the golden era of consumer.
Think of the early internet/dot-com bubble. The companies and ideas that emerged from that era rebuilt and remodelled the internet and its infrastructure, and changed the way we live, interact, communicate and consume in pivotal ways, from Facebook to Twitter, to Stripe, to you name it. These companies thrived because they had access to capital, and funders who poured knowledge, money, and expertise into moulding them. Think Sequoia, Y Combinator, Khosla, a16z. These funds emerged to fund a new kind of company: a startup. A business built around technology, designed to grow really fast, and the companies they funded with conviction ended up changing the world.
That era created the perfect storm for consumer companies that build and sell physical products to thrive. Payment rails exist so people can purchase things easily online. Social media has made it easy for businesses to connect to their customers. The world is more connected than ever, and we have access to other cultures in a way we haven't before.
Afrobeats and K-pop are listened to worldwide. People start their days with matcha lattes. People use K-beauty products for their skin. African fashion is hot. There are a thousand more examples.
Consumers are not just purchasing products; they are purchasing connection or exposure to culture. People identify more and more with what they consume. People these days don’t just walk into the store and pick up a food or beauty product; they buy products they feel connected to, and products designed and marketed in ways that show they were made with a specific consumer in mind. People don’t just want generic things; the products they buy tell a story.
My Thesis — The Cultural Coefficient
A coefficient is a multiplier in an equation; it scales an outcome. I believe culture is the X factor and the most underpriced asset today, and I am betting it will be a huge multiplier.
My prediction and my thesis are that the next billion-dollar businesses will be consumer businesses with what I've coined a high "Cultural Coefficient". The Cultural Coefficient refers to the extent to which a product, brand, or company is deeply rooted in, and derives its value from, a specific culture, the founder's lived cultural experience, and shared human behaviour.
Businesses with a high cultural coefficient have products with high cultural resonance that can translate across global audiences. They introduce elements from specific cultures to new cultures, and make the products so good that they become an integral part of lives and routines.
Using my proprietary Cultural Coefficient Framework, I invest in companies that score high on four key metrics:
Cultural depth: How deeply the brand's product and story are rooted in local identity, customs, or values. The founder or team has an authentic connection to the culture or community their product serves, and the product carries real emotional or symbolic significance, not just function.
Consumer resonance: How strongly consumers emotionally identify with the brand and adopt it as part of their lifestyle. Customers don't just buy the product; they identify with it, advocate for it, and integrate it into their cultural expression.
Cross-cultural fluency: The brand's ability to translate local authenticity into global aspiration and marketability, even when it starts from a local or niche cultural insight (e.g. shea-based skincare).
Founders' lived cultural insight: How deeply the founder connects with the problem they are solving, distinct from cultural depth in the product itself. This is about the founder's proximity to the problem; cultural depth is about whether that proximity actually shows up in the product.
I'm betting on these types of companies, founded by women. Founded by women means at least one female founder is on the team. Male co-founders are welcome, but a woman needs to be at the table building it.
I am building a fund designed specifically to support this archetype, not just give them capital, but to support them with the knowledge and expertise they need to grow, scale, and build meaningful, impactful businesses. I want to be the first high-conviction cheque, help them create brand stories that build emotional connections, nail distribution, and scale thoughtfully.
What's Next?
The cultural coefficient is the first ‘hypothesis’ of Spirit Capital, and I'm all in on finding out where it leads. I'm starting with:
1. A cohort course for female founders building consumer companies with a high Cultural Coefficient. The goal is to share everything I know about fundraising and help them get ready to raise capital. More on this soon, but you can indicate interest here to be the first to know when the program is live.
Building a community of aligned angel investors. My mission is to help people grow their wealth by starting, scaling and investing in private assets. I want to help individuals fund exciting companies that resonate with them and kickstart their angel investing journey. Investing as part of a community is one of the most powerful ways to do this. I'm structuring each investment I make into companies as an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), so aligned angels can co-invest deal by deal alongside me. I believe in democratising access to invest in private assets, and I want to build this in from day one. If you're interested, you can sign up here.
I’m excited for the journey ahead. If you’re building something that fits the thesis, or you read this and felt a spark light up within you, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch here.
