We are on track toward our March 2027 first close for the OAO Leap PE Fund. The LP data room is in preparation. Our thesis is clear. Our team is aligned. What we are focused on is ensuring that every element of what we present to institutional investors reflects the standard we hold ourselves to internally.
We will keep you informed, directly and without pretence, as the build progresses.
Chief Executive Officer, OAO Investments
The investment industry has frameworks for risk, return, and allocation. What it has fewer frameworks for is accountability, the kind that comes from genuinely believing that the capital you deploy belongs, in the deepest sense, to the people and purposes it will ultimately serve.
At OAO, we call this stewardship. It is not an ESG checkbox. It is the reason we take longer to decide, choose concentration over volume, and care about what a business becomes long after the investment is made. Stewardship-led investment is an operational stance, not a positioning statement.
The SA mid-market SME is the most undercapitalised segment in our economy. Not because capital does not exist, but because the kind of patient, partnership-led capital these businesses need is rarely structured to serve them. That is the gap OAO Leap is built to fill.
Kwanda is a Zulu word for expansion, but not expansion for its own sake. It speaks to growth that is dignified, inclusive, and genuinely sustainable. It is the philosophical foundation of how OAO approaches every portfolio company and every ecosystem initiative we take on.
In practice, Kwanda means we assess a business not only on its financial statements but on its operational depth, leadership capacity, market positioning, and ability to absorb growth without losing its core. Capital is entrusted, not owned, and every decision flows from that responsibility. We invest in what can scale with integrity.
The five levers of our OAO Leap Growth Framework, including operational excellence, digital capability, market access, capital structure, and leadership development, are all expressions of the Kwanda philosophy applied to investable businesses.
OAO's participation in the JSE Capital Matching event is one expression of this philosophy in action. The event brought entrepreneurs, funders, and ecosystem players into one room with a single intention: real growth. OAO showed up as a steward, and the conversations that followed have directly strengthened the quality of the deal pipeline feeding into the OAO Leap Fund.
Jersey Finance recently featured me in their Women in Leadership series. The conversation covers the origins of OAO's fund thesis, the role of global capital networks in shaping how we build, and what four years of intentional relationship-building has produced.
For this subscriber list, the context worth adding is the context the public feature does not carry: the Jersey Finance relationship dates to 2022. It has been a material contributor to where OAO stands today, with two active funds in development and over R250 million in capital mobilised.
Before we introduce the people behind OAO, we want to introduce the institution itself. This short video captures what we are building at OAO Investments, the philosophy that drives every investment decision, and what stewardship of growth looks like in practice. Less than a minute. Watch it first.
In June 2026, OAO Technology launched Kwanda AI Foundations, a free 18-minute AI skills programme for post-matric South African youth who are out of school and looking for work. The programme teaches five practical skills directly tied to job readiness: writing and improving a CV, preparing for interviews, understanding unfamiliar topics, organising tasks, and communicating clearly in professional settings.
No data package is required to register. No qualifications are needed to participate. It costs nothing to join.
For our LPs, this programme demonstrates that the OAO portfolio generates more than financial returns. It generates capability in communities that have historically been excluded from the economic benefits of technological change. That is the kind of investable thesis that holds up across market cycles.
The programme launched on 22 June 2026. Completion data and participant outcomes will be shared in a future edition of this newsletter.
The Door Openers is OAO Women's flagship journal. It honours and equips women as architects of change through mentorship, investment, and intergenerational empowerment. Through the Women in Leadership programme, OAO provides a platform for women to develop leadership capacity, enter business, and shape industries with intention.
Women-led businesses are a demonstrably underserved segment of the South African economy. Our investment in The Door Openers is an investment in the pipeline of future founders and operators that the OAO ecosystem will need over the next decade.
