VLA Capital Advisors, a division of VentureLift Africa
Building Economic Bridges within and into Africa through Two-Way Investment and Trade
Welcome to VLA Capital Advisors - Your trusted advisor for business transactions in and with Africa.
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Our Service Areas
We are experienced dealmakers for business transactions with Africa. We support intra and cross-border deals with Africa. With a consortium of African and Diaspora transaction advisors, trade partners, financial institutions and lawyers, we are pioneers in Diaspora economic engagement with Africa beyond remittances. We offer advisory services in the following areas:
Diaspora Dealmaking
Investment Facilitation
Export-Import
Foreign Direct Investment
Market Entry
Mergers & Acquisitions
Tech Transfer
Franchising
Capital Markets Development
Sovereign Wealth Fund Advisory
Diaspora Talent Recruitment
Economic and Social Impact Analysis
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VentureLift Africa connects African startups, growing companies and corporates to investors and partners who can help them grow and scale.
Primary Sectors
We bring experience across the continent, North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. We work across all sectors and have demonstrated expertise in economic engagement of the African Diaspora.
AGRIBUSINESS
CREATIVE
EDUCATION
FINANCIAL SERVICES
FMCG - RETAIL
HEALTH
HOUSING & REAL ESTATE
RENEWABLE ENERGY
TECHNOLOGY
MANUFACTURING
Our Founder – Dr. Wilmot Allen
Dr. Allen has over 20 years of experience in finance, management consulting and entrepreneurship ecosystem-building. Based in Kenya, He is an emerging market entrepreneur, investor and political economist. Wilmot has deep experience across a variety of sectors, financial asset classes and product areas.
In healthcare, he is Co-Founder of a genomics company and former management consultant to the Africa CDC and COVID-19 Taskforce Member. He is a Venture Partner with a healthcare private equity fund. He previously worked with the clinical research division of Procter and Gamble and was a management consultant to the R&D group of Allergan Pharmaceuticals.
In the creative sector, he is a Co-Creator of the 2021 International Writer’s Lab, an accelerator and fellowship program that connect the African creative ecosystem to Hollywood. Prior, he worked with the finance and strategy team at the ABC Television Network (Walt Disney Company) which managed the network’s primetime, daytime, late night, sports, and Touchstone Television properties, film finance with JPMorgan, and was Executive in Charge of Production of the award-winning Tavis Smiley Show and a Creative Executive for KCET/PBS in Hollywood.
In financial roles, Wilmot led the Transaction Team for the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub as Director for Cross Boundary LLC and has worked as an emerging market private equity investor (IFC), technology and media venture capital investor for U.S. women and minority-owned businesses (CEF), and investment banker in technology M&A (JP Morgan) and Private Placements and IPOs (Merrill Lynch). At the IFC, he was also Senior Advisor to CEO Lars Thunell on entrepreneurship, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Youth Unemployment. He has mobilized more than $7 billion in financial capital and invested or managed investment portfolios of over $3 billion as an investment professional across five continents.
Wilmot was selected as a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and served on a Global Agenda Council. He sits on several boards of African companies and has helped advance entrepreneurship ecosystems across the continent. Wilmot is a steward of the Council of Inclusive Capitalism and a Robert Toigo Fellow alumnus. He is a post-doctoral fellow at the African Centre for the Study of the US of Wits University in South Africa and a co-author of Sovereign Wealth Funds and the New State Capitalism in Africa (forthcoming, Palgrave MacMillan). He has degrees from Georgetown (PhD), Wharton (MBA), Harvard (MPA) and Yale (BA).
Diaspora Engagement
The 2021 International Writer’s Lab
A Creative Accelerator and Fellowship Program
September 2021 - Inaugural Kenya Cohort
The Distance between Hollywood and Africa is Closing!!
DITDE
Virtual Event
Building the Economic Bridge Between the United States and Africa
A seminal diaspora economic engagement summit which brought together African diaspora from around the world for trade and investment deal-making with African businesses.
Declaration of Interdependence
An Initiative to Catalyze Partners for Diaspora Economic Engagement with Africa
His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana makes the business case for Diaspora economic engagement with Africa at the DITDE 2020!!
AAU Talks: The Role of the African Diaspora in Shaping the Continent's Scientific Agenda
VentureLift Africa, National Black Chambers of Commerce, National Urban League Young Professionals and Global South X South Consulting - April 2021
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News & Announcements
Recent Announcements
- VLA hosted the April 8th Africa Renaissance Doing Business with Africa Symposium for the National Urban League Young Professionals and National Black Chambers of Commerce. Our co-facilitator was Global SouthXSouth Consulting
- VLA has been tapped by the Southern Africa Trade and Investment Hub to curate AGOA-eligible products from Southern Africa into the US
- VLA to partner with Blackhouse Foundation and PMF Media Group to establish the International Writer’s Lab (IWL). The inaugural cohort will be based in Kenya. The IWL will be a creative accelerator to advance the professional development, international connections and the opportunities to partner with Hollywood Studios
- VLA Founder Dr. Wilmot Allen to speak at the Ghana Diaspora Investment Summit on June 23-24, 2021
- VLA Founder Dr. Wilmot Allen joins the Investment Panel at the MIT Africa Innovate Conference on April 24, 2021
- VLA Founder Dr. Wilmot Allen and Konfidants CEO Michael Kottah agree on book deal with Palgrave (January 2022): African Sovereign Wealth Funds and the New State Capitalism
- Konfidants engages VLA to co-lead project for the International Finance Corporation on Resource Rich Country Strategies in the developing world
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