VLA Capital Advisors, a division of VentureLift Africa
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:
VentureLift Africa connects African startups, growing companies and corporates to investors and partners who can help them grow and scale.
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.
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).
A Creative Accelerator and Fellowship Program
September 2021 - Inaugural Kenya Cohort
The Distance between Hollywood and Africa is Closing!!
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.
An Initiative to Catalyze Partners for Diaspora Economic Engagement with Africa
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