Investors often overlook promising startups. This VC program trains scouts

Since the capital rush of the zero-interest rate era of the early 2020s, which saw investors increase their appetite for riskier bets,  Africa’s venture capital industry has slowly solved its talent problem. Today, local investors account for nearly 40% of the total funding that African startups receive yearly. 

Some of this growth has been driven by the rise of venture capital-focused training programmes such as Dream VC, Included VC, and Immerse VC, which have helped professionalise the industry by teaching new VC employees how to operate as venture capitalists and, in some cases, help people secure jobs with VC firms. 

But while these programmes have focused on VC employment as a whole, none have been dedicated to venture scouting, an entry point that can be part-time, decentralised and help attract more foreign investors to the continent. 

Benjamin Udokwu, a former founder and consultant, is trying to fix that with Seven24 Ventures, a program designed to teach Africans how to be venture scouts. Venture scouting is the process of finding and evaluating promising early-stage startups on behalf of a venture capital firm (or angel syndicate) before those startups are widely known or formally fundraising. 

Udokwu became a scout himself after Gopaxy, his retail tech startup, failed in 2019 due to a lack of capital. “I even joined Founder Institute’s very first cohort in Lagos to test the idea better, but it still did not pan out,” he said. 

That experience led him to co-found Climatr, an environmental and sustainability consultancy, and ultimately discover the access-to-capital challenges faced by other early-stage founders between 2020 and 2021. Udokwu’s scouting began with informal conversations on LinkedIn and evolved into a manual process of finding VCs and cold-messaging them about deals. 

For this week’s Ask an Investor, I spoke to Udokwu about his motivation for starting Seven24 Ventures, how the scout academy addresses access-to-capital challenges faced by underrepresented founders, the traits of a great scout, and common misconceptions about deal sourcing.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you start Seven24? What gap did you see that you were trying to fill?

Back in 2019, there weren’t many people into scouting. Back then, it was like four people doing scouting across Africa, even including North Africa. Scouting wasn’t a mainstream thing.

It seemed like we were gatekeepers, and of course, that came with certain privileges. But I’d receive calls regularly asking for advice on how to enter venture scouting. 

I thought, ‘Why hoard the knowledge?’

The ecosystem is growing. 2019 isn’t 2026. The volume of startups launched every day, every month, is massive. Four people can’t cover Nigeria, let alone West Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. The market is huge. It made sense to disseminate the expertise and experience we’d built, bring in passionate people, and pass the baton—so they can do more than we did in helping underrepresented founders get visibility, access to capital, and funding to grow their businesses.

How are scouts typically compensated?

There are different models. The model I started with, and still use, does not charge upfront. A founder doesn’t pay me to begin scouting.

Instead, we agree that if any introduction I make leads to an investment, I take 5% of that specific check. For example, if a startup is raising $500k and I bring an investor who puts in $100k, I take 5% of that $100k—that’s $5,000. I’m not taking 5% of the entire round—just the portion I sourced.

Some scouts or agencies charge upfront—$2,000, $5,000, or sometimes $10,000. I don’t like that model because once you take money upfront, you’re under pressure to “deliver” an investment even though you don’t control the final decision. If none of the VCs invest, it can damage your reputation.

My approach protects reputation: no upfront fee. I get you access. If it results in investment, you pay. I’ve personally onboarded and introduced over 150 startups to VCs through my network.

What are you optimising for with Seven24?

Two things: more deals and better deals.

More deals in the sense that VCs can have a more robust pipeline to evaluate before concluding whether there’s quality in the ecosystem. And better deals, because the issue is often not deal scarcity—it’s visibility to great deals.

I spoke with a VC firm last year. Their plan was to invest in, say, 10 deals, but they ended up doing four because they felt they didn’t have access to quality opportunities. My conviction is: the deals exist. Many founders are building amazing things, and a lot of prominent VC firms don’t know about them. They go for the usual suspects—people who are already visible on major platforms—but many underrepresented startups aren’t seen.

What we’re optimising for is access to quality, underrepresented deals. If we train 10–15 quality scouts across markets—say South Africa as an example—they can plug into local ecosystems and spotlight founders that would otherwise be overlooked. VC firms benefit from a stronger pipeline and are more likely to meet their annual investment targets. It’s a win-win: more founders get funded, and VCs have a better, more robust deal pipeline.

What makes a great Seven24 scout? 

First is market curiosity. Great scouts are endlessly curious about industries, trends, and market behaviour within their ecosystems. Curiosity helps you spot early signals that other people miss. You should be able to look at historical data and current trends and understand where the market is tilting so you can position yourself to source the best deals.

Second is networking and relationship building. Scouts thrive on trust. Strong relationships with founders, operators, and investors create a steady pipeline of credible opportunities. On the VC side, you need relationships with the right people—GPs when possible, but also analysts and associates who review deals. On the founder side, you need trust and credibility, because founders who trust you will refer you to other strong founders.

Third is analytical thinking. Scouts need to quickly filter startups and distinguish real traction from noise. Strong analysis sharpens judgement and reduces wasted time. A great scout can review multiple decks and accurately identify which deals are truly investable, but that takes years of work.

Fourth is storytelling and communication. Scouts are storytellers. It’s not just sharing pitch decks; it’s communicating a startup’s story so clearly and compellingly that investors lean in and want to take the call.

Fifth is cultural and local context awareness. Beyond numbers, scouts must understand local nuances—regulatory shifts, sector dynamics, cultural realities—and translate those into useful context for investors. Investors outside the market often don’t have that context, and the scout’s job is to reduce blind spots and help them understand what’s really happening on the ground.

What part of scouting can be taught by Seven24, and what part can’t?

The teachable parts include networking fundamentals—where to source deals: conferences, private mixers, demo days, pitch sessions—and the mechanics of diligence: how to evaluate a startup, run due diligence, and write an investment memo.

What can’t really be taught is judgement—the ability to make consistently good calls about what’s truly investable. Even VCs miss this all the time. But scouts sit in a privileged position: you review a lot of deals, get real feedback from investors, and, over time, you refine your judgement.

Walk me through the entire scout workflow. How does a lead become an introduction and then an opportunity?

When I receive a pitch deck, I review a few key things. First: founder background—I want to know you’re the right person to build what you’re building. Second: how novel the solution is—whether it’s truly innovative or just copy-and-paste. Third: traction—numbers help tell the story. Fourth: valuation and raise size—because unrealistic valuations won’t fly with most VC firms.

If the deck looks strong, I introduce the startup by email. I write a short blurb, attach the deck, and send it to my contact within the VC firm. Usually, within a few days to a week, they respond with interest or a pass.

If they’re interested, I facilitate a direct introduction between the founder and the VC contact, and then I step back. I don’t work for the startup or the VC; my role becomes “on the sidelines”—helping ensure both sides are responsive, information is shared properly, and the process moves forward smoothly.

Sometimes investors ask for additional context about the founder beyond the deck. Where I can, I provide that context, especially what isn’t obvious from public information. As the conversation progresses, my job becomes removing roadblocks. I have templates— simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) notes, convertible notes—and materials that help founders prepare their data rooms properly. I’ve seen investors walk away because a founder wasn’t prepared or didn’t have key documentation ready. So I help founders get investor-ready.

I also look at terms from the founder’s side. I’m more founder-aligned; I want founders to feel good about the deal. If something feels off, and if my relationship with the VC allows it, I can help negotiate or at least flag issues early. Once the check is cut, the funds are wired to the startup, and based on our agreement, I’m remunerated within five business days.

If Seven24 succeeds, what changes in African VC?

If we succeed, it means we’ve helped ecosystem enablers—founders, operators, community builders—see that deal opportunities are already around them. They just need the right structure to scout and connect founders into a VC network.

Over the next five years, I expect an upward shift in the number of deals closed annually. If Africa is doing, say, 500 deals a year, a well-built scout network could potentially double that number—or at least increase it by 30–40%. That means more founders accessing capital.

What would be even more meaningful is seeing new players emerge—startups that have been building quietly and then suddenly appear on the radar because scouts are surfacing them. We’re tired of seeing the usual suspects raise round after round. I want to see underrepresented founders in emerging markets step into the spotlight—founders who have put in the work but haven’t had visibility.

What are some misconceptions about venture scouting?

One misconception is that you’ll find great deals at any tech conference. Generic conferences—where everyone is in one room—rarely produce the best deals.

If you want great deals, go where quality founders gather: private mixers hosted by credible ecosystem enablers who attract strong builders. You need to know who those enablers are and be in those rooms.

Another misconception is ignoring founder networks. If you scout a high-quality founder, they can introduce you to other high-quality founders. Like attracts like. Learning how to leverage the networks of strong founders is crucial.

A third misconception is that the best deals only come from the “big four” ecosystems—Egypt, Nigeria (Lagos), South Africa, and Kenya. Innovation and growth are happening across the board. I’ve scouted strong Francophone startups out of Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Benin—blue-ocean markets with less competition. I’ve also scouted strong founders in Uganda. More investors are paying attention to Francophone markets now because many see them as the next frontier.