AAA Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Ore-oluwa Adeyemi

Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Ore-oluwa Adeyemi

Much of modern financial services stems from loans, or credit, which derives from the Latin, credere, to trust or believe.

So, it seems appropriate to have trustworthy people in the corporate venturing industry regardless of whether they are taking equity, convertible debt or offering bridge or other loans.

One such is Ore-oluwa Adeyemi, director at HSBC’s Strategic Innovation Investments unit responsible for corporate venturing at the UK-listed bank.

Adeyemi’s professor, Israel Obisesan, described him as “a young man of impeccable character” before his departure from Nigeria to study in the US at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Before joining HSBC more than a decade ago, Adeyemi was in consulting in the US with Booz Allen Hamilton and had stints in technology and investing at Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies and Dubai Development and Investment Authority (Dubai Holding).

Once at HSBC in 2006, he said he spent two years in investment banking before becoming an investment director within HSBC Principal Investments, HSBC’s private equity unit, “where I focused on direct investments particularly in Africa and also invested alongside leading global buyout firms in Europe and North America”.

In 2014, he then moved over to help launch HSBC’s Strategic Innovation Investments, which is the bank’s corporate venture capital unit with a global mandate to invest in financial technologies and other venture opportunities of strategic value to the HSBC Group.

Adeyemi said: “I have always been attracted to investing since my time at MIT – working with entrepreneurs and students on innovative ideas, and also launching a software business in the 1990s with a classmate. My transition into financial services several years later was at HSBC and I was fortunate to work within principal investing entities, so it was a natural transition for me to be a part of a CVC team.

“I have been fortunate to have exposure to different asset classes – private equity and venture within the same organisation. This is also a particularly interesting time given the increased pace of innovation in financial services – unprecedented change that is redefining the nature of financial services.

“Several opportunities abound for large corporate institutions and banks to partner innovative startups. Also, a key attraction of CVC is seeing beyond just financial returns but also seizing the opportunity to get very granular with different units to understand their challenges, where they see opportunities and how innovative technologies can help achieve their plans.

“CVC gives you a front-row seat in the marketplace and an opportunity to influence internally and externally from day one.”

Adeyemi’s deals under Remi Bourrette, head of Strategic Innovation Investments, and Christophe Chazot, group head of innovation, have included Vizolution, which raised $6.3m in October, Kyriba’s $23m series D round in September and leading CustomerMatrix’s $10.5m B round in January last year.

And he thought the opportunity for the CVC industry was “increased collaboration, not just in specific verticals but across verticals”, adding: “For example, innovation in supply chain cuts across financial services, consumer goods, and CVCs in these sectors can collaborate to leverage their areas of expertise.

“Because of the focus on strategic fit with a principal, deals by CVCs tend to be a bit more complex than your everyday venture investment focused simply on financial returns. Success for me has been achieved beyond the completion of the deal, when we are clearly reaping the benefits and synergies of the strategic partnership formed by that particular corporate investment.

“Every deal has its peculiarities and challenges – but a challenge that cuts across each deal is helping young companies navigate a large global institution that is HSBC and ensuring that there is strategic alignment with these young but innovative companies.

“Drawing up the documentation is usually the easy part, but the portfolio management stage is critical for ensuring these partnerships meet expectations – the process of onboarding innovation.”

And so Adeyemi said he was keen to mentor and give back to the CVC industry.

While Adeyemi might have left Africa for the US then the UK, he remains very involved and interested in helping the continent. He said: “Given my background – born and raised in Nigeria, I am also very passionate about Africa and role of investments in building capacity and spurring growth in that part of the world especially in the area of education and healthcare.”

He is on the advisory board of an Africa-focused healthcare investment fund and mentor for the SwiftScale accelerator programme.

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