We have lived through the emotional roller coaster of leading startups so we have huge respect and empathy for our founder teams. We also understand investing.
Our entrepreneurial experience, coupled with investing expertise has created a potent combination for building businesses.
We want to create the fund that we wish existed when we each built our companies.
Managing Partner
Formally trained as an accountant, Brent is, at his core, a creator, an unconventional thinker and an entrepreneur.
While completing his business degree, he wrote and directed an award-winning play and founded the first full service digital agency in the Middle East and Africa shortly thereafter.
Under Brent’s leadership, the agency grew to be the largest and most successful in the region. Brent subsequently sold the business to the WPP Group in 2007, where he remained a senior executive until 2014.
Most recently, Brent established a new-age global digital disruption consultancy, with offices spanning Africa and Europe. He brings his unique blend of commercial clarity and strategic imagination to complex business challenges, advising multi-national corporations on disruptive growth.
Brent has been actively investing in early stage growth companies for several years and joined the VCW team at Capitalworks in 2020.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce and an Honours Degree in Business Information Systems and Accounting from the University of the Witwatersrand and is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA).
Partner and Investment Principal
Demetri brings deep structuring, risk management and value-creation expertise to the team, having spent the majority of his career providing institutional capital to entrepreneurs and supporting founderbacked business across multiple sectors and geographies.
Demetri started his career with PwC London, thereafter joining Electra Private Equity Plc, where he spent 4 years. Demetri subsequently spent 9 years as a partner at special situations investor ESO Capital, were he headed the portfolio and was the IC member responsible for transaction structuring and overall portfolio and risk management. During his time as ESO, Demetri led and managed transactions spanning a broad range of niche sectors, working actively with founders and representing investor interests on Boards for over 20 portfolio company positions. Demetri holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Accounting from Exeter University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAEW).
Partner and Investment Principal
Jonathan is a founding member of VCW and has over 14 years’ experience in venture capital, fintech and insurance.
Prior to joining VCW, Jonathan was a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting Africa, servicing several blue-chip clients in the financial services and insurance industries. Within VCW, Jonathan co-founded and managed the team that incubated Instantlife.co.za (the first digital direct life insurance business in South Africa), that was successfully exited to Absa Bank.
Subsequent to that, he acquired and managed Data Inc., one of the largest financial services lead generation businesses in South Africa for VCW as its CEO.
Jonathan holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and an Honours Degree in Accounting from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA).
