Our People
David Ogundeko
Founder & CEO
A man of faith, recovering poet and a socially awkward entrepreneur. He's a theoretical maths and physics enthusiast who is very much happy hiding behind spreadsheets and data models. He spends his free time feeding his curiosity in binary stars, singularities and quantum phenomena.
Oche Bridgeford
Partner, Communications and Investor Relations
Multi-industry international professional with one foot in the United States and one in Africa. Founder. Adviser. Global TEDx Speaker. More than 18 years of professional experience spanning the tech, non-profit, sports & entertainment, government, and marketing & communications industries.
Mikhail Janowski
Partner, Technology, Blockchain and Crypto Assets
I've always been interested in how things work and this led me down a very technical career path. Starting off in software development I gained experience with a number of languages, frameworks and design patterns. I then moved on to focus more on DevOps and cloud infrastructure. This taught me the importance of automation and system architecture.
Bern Leuvennink
Advisory Partner, Investments and Expansion
Bern Leuvennink established a successful professional career in accounting, tax and advisory in both South Africa and the UK. In so doing, he developed a passion for global business growth and development as well cross-border commerce. Besides building a strong professional network across the world, his international experience and global footprint have nurtured an agile and independent mindset invaluable to his clients.
Augustine Ikwuegbuenyi
Associate | Investments
Augustine Ikwuegbuenyi is the Investment Operations Lead at Funema Group LLC, where he oversees analysts and senior venture operators that offer day-to-day venture building services, deal sourcing, investment analysis, due diligence, and performance evaluation of existing portfolio companies.
Dolapo Oni
Associate | Ventures
Dolapo Oni is the Venture Operations Lead at Funema Group LLC, where he works directly with the founders in ensuring they’re building sustainable and profitable companies. He leads the team charged with the responsibility of integrating our company building and growth frameworks into our portfolio companies.
Motunrayo Olaleye
Associate | Products
Motunrayo is the Product and Operations Lead at Funema Group LLC. As the Product Lead, she oversees the product development support for portfolio companies and the internal projects across Funema's key mandates for sustainable value creation and ecosystem development.
Favour Odey
Analyst
As an Analyst, Favour works closely with both the Venture Operators and Team Leads, ensuring that the Venture Operators are well integrated into the various portfolio companies and duly carry out venture support. When working with the associates, she assists in the Investment Operations, Venture Operations, and Product Operations teams, jumping in when needed and offering solutions as best as possible.
Oluwatofunmi Idowu
Analyst
Oluwatofunmi manages Venture Operators in Funema, ensuring that they carry out their activities in the company with different teams and offering top notch portfolio support to the portfolio companies.
Abdulwasiu Alebiosu
Senior Venture Operator
Abdulwasiu is an Avid Venture Building & Capital, Product Management, & Tech Enthusiast, a Continuous Learner, a Community Advocate and a Serial Volunteer. At Funema, Abdulwasiu did a PM internship and now as a Senior Venture Operator works closely in the Product Operations team to support the development of digital products, in the Venture Operations team to provide support for the portfolio companies and conduct first level analysis on pipeline companies, in the Investment Operations team to conduct investment due diligence on portfolio companies.
Bidemi Ogedengbe
Senior Venture Operator
Bidemi Ogedengbe works with the Venture, Product and Investment Operations team. She facilitates market research for new products and provides support to early stage portfolio companies at Funema through hands-on services to set up programs and solve specific problems that keep the business operations running smoothly.
Namira Shabnam
Senior Venture Operator
Namira works with Funema’s portfolio companies in the Venture Ops team to ensure that all mission-driven goals are met while keeping informed on how she can best assist these companies in achieving their full potential; her duties in Product Ops and Investment Ops include conducting market research, assisting team leads in business development and assessing the potential for future investment opportunities for the firm.
Bertran Strydom
Senior Venture Operator
Bertran works closely with the portfolio companies in Funema, as part of the Investment Operations team, by conducting due diligence, financial analysis and financial modelling in order to produce relevant analytical data for portfolio company management. As a. While being part of the IOPS team, as a SVO Bertran works with all the teams at Funema where he is able to bring value to the projects and tasks at hand.
.png)
.png)
future now
emerging markets
We believe we have been given the grace to support, partner and co-build innovative last-mile solutions with visionary entrepreneurs who are passionate about solving the developmental challenges of underserved communities in emerging markets.
