Dotun Olowoporoku of Starta on identifying billion-dollar startup potential in Africa

African Tech Roundup

Academic turned startup founder and investor, Dotun Olowoporoku, is the Managing Partner at Starta, a platform that "makes it easier to build, discover and track high growth businesses in Africa through startup education, data and growth consulting". Dotun is also a General Partner at the Nigerian VC outfit, Ventures Platform and the host of the Building the Future with Dotun podcast (http://thestarta.com/podcast) which features Africa-focused tech and innovation ecosystem actors who are doing their bit to shape Africa's future. Dotun previously founded Yhello Technologies (formerly known as meals.co.uk), an on-demand food delivery platform in the UK. He exited that business after striking a deal with Just-eat.co.uk, one of Europe's leading food ordering platforms. Following that, he joined a UK-based angel syndicate fund called Potential VC to spearhead the firm's early-stage startup investment efforts in Africa, before going on to found Starta. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Dotun talks about his fascinating journey from postdoctoral research fellow to founder and investor, and unpacks his thesis for identifying and backing billion-dollar startup potential in Africa.