John Onwualu - Flourish Ventures
“I’d rather back a team tackling a hard but systemically important problem than chase a fast-moving, crowded category.”
Connect with John
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-onwualu/
VC Uncovered’s View
John Onwualu runs toward complexity. While the 2008 crash sent many peers fleeing Wall Street, John dove into the wreckage to understand the mechanics of failure. This instinct to dismantle and understand systems defines his investment lens at Flourish Ventures.
Flourish operates with an evergreen structure that lets investors like John look past the typical ten-year fund cycle. They back entrepreneurs transforming financial systems for the long haul. John uses this freedom to ignore the hype cycle and focus on the infrastructure of finance, specifically compliance, AI, and on-chain technology.
His worldview stems from his father’s experience as a Nigerian immigrant entrepreneur. John witnessed the friction of operating between continents with nascent capital markets. This history drives his empathy for founders navigating volatility. It fits the core mission of VC Uncovered to highlight investors looking beyond the Bay Area. John knows true innovation often emerges from overlooked backgrounds and complex, regulated markets.Meet John
Q: You can be anywhere. Eating, drinking, and reading your favorite thing. What is it?
A: I would be sitting on the beach in Tarkwa Bay (Lagos, Nigeria) drinking a cold Guinness and reading Howard Marks monthly memo.
Key Quotes
“I’d rather back a team tackling a hard but systemically important problem than chase a fast-moving, crowded category.”
“The majority of venture capital still flows to the regions, cities, sectors, and even people it has for decades.”
“Not chasing the herd can pay dividends.”
“Real progress comes from people who can navigate both worlds.”
“The smartest, most creative investors can provide sharper insights that give their portfolio companies a much greater edge, but they are not the heart of successful companies.”
Original Responses (Lightly Edited for Clarity and Flow)
Background and Personal Journey
Experiences Shaping My Investment Approach
The Great Financial Crisis hit when I had my whole career ahead of me. I needed to figure out what to do with my life. A lot of my peers understandably wanted to do anything but work on Wall Street. But this complex disaster drew me closer. How did this happen? What incentives, infrastructure, and human behavior combined to create these outcomes? I enrolled in Wharton to study finance as an undergraduate and then joined Morgan Stanley’s mortgage-backed securities group shortly after the worst mortgage crisis in history.
That’s where I fostered my love of finance and the impact it can have. But I also had a desire to learn more about what it takes to build and operate a business. This led me to San Francisco to join SoFi ahead of its IPO. I really enjoyed my time there. It is no coincidence that I’m now a fintech investor after spending time at one of the most successful fintechs.
As for investing itself, my younger brother was playing in the NFL at the time. During his year with the San Francisco 49ers, he and his teammates had plenty of opportunities to invest in startups. We decided to assemble a consortium of professional athletes and launch a syndicate fund to invest in sports technology businesses. It’s still in operation today.
The last pieces of the puzzle involve my interests in emerging markets and regulation. Early in my career, I saw how technology and regulation often talk past each other, especially in financial services. That tension between innovation and the rules meant to keep it in check taught me that real progress comes from people who can navigate both worlds. That inspired me to leave SoFi for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, which operates in emerging markets and is funded by the Treasury Department.
Influences on My Worldview
My dad came to the U.S. from Nigeria in the ‘70s and built a series of small businesses that operated between continents. His example had a tremendous influence on me.
First of all, I have such admiration for the grit and tenacity he showed as an African immigrant entrepreneur. It was a difficult path, but his hunger to build something of his own stuck with me. That is a drive I bring to my own work and look for in the founders I invest in.
I also saw how difficult it is to start a business. I saw the pain and the volatility. So I have deep empathy for what founders go through, and that has enabled me to connect with them. It would have been hard enough for him to build a business in America. Then you add the layer of Nigeria’s nascent capital markets and the extreme difficulty of moving money, and you can see where my respect for him came from.
The failures of the system during the GFC compelled me to join Wall Street. In a similar way, understanding the challenges of emerging markets from a young age compelled me to incorporate them into my own career. I’m a huge capital markets nerd. While I’m on the U.S. investing team at Flourish, I’m still able to work with colleagues on deals around the world. The role has been a uniquely advantageous one at the sweet spot of my interests.
Philosophy and Insights
Investment Philosophy
I invest in founders building infrastructure that reshapes how financial systems operate, especially where AI, compliance, and on-chain technology can drive systemic, positive change.
I’ve seen that the most durable companies in financial services are those that don’t just digitize existing workflows, but re-architect how trust, transparency, and access work. The combination of AI and financial infrastructure is now powerful enough to create those step changes, and that’s where I focus.
Values When Working with Founders
I prioritize clarity, integrity, and alignment. The best founder relationships are built on a shared understanding of the “why” behind the company. I try to be transparent about how I think, what good looks like, and where I can add real value.
I’m looking for founders who are all in. I want people who get me excited to hop on a call on the weekend to talk through whatever they’re facing. Founders are going to the full John Onwualu if they partner with me! That means I’ll be a partner who shares a passion for their vision and wants to build a relationship on trust and transparency, whether things are going great or not.
Approach to Risk
The right kind of risk arising from solving deep infrastructure problems or regulatory bottlenecks is where enduring value gets created. I’d rather back a team tackling a hard but systemically important problem than chase a fast-moving, crowded category.
As an early-stage fund, we are structurally built to lean into calculated early risks to partner with the most talented, ambitious founders. Larger multi-stage funds have different mandates and different incentives. They can afford to take optionality bets at scale. Our advantage comes from high-conviction early decisions. We don’t follow momentum; we back founders tackling foundational problems. Taking informed risk early is essential. When directed at the right problems and teams, it compounds meaningfully over time.
Trends and Future Vision
Misconceptions About VCs
Venture is full of big personalities and insights. At the end of the day, everyone needs to remember it’s not the VCs with the great ideas. The founders set the vision and pace as the key drivers of the business. The VC’s job is to help them go further, faster.
Don’t get me wrong, I bring my point of view to every partnership. The fact is that the best venture capitalists succeed over time because they’ve built historical context on how cycles work and have seen what common pitfalls startups face. They offer guidance and structure for founders who invest their whole selves into building something that, statistically, may be a long shot but demands full conviction to bring to life.
The VCs that foster innovation do so through these dialogues and their industry networks. The smartest, most creative investors can provide sharper insights that give their portfolio companies a much greater edge, but they are not the heart of successful companies.
Improving the VC Ecosystem
The majority of venture capital still flows to the regions, cities, sectors, and even people it has for decades. The Bay Area startup ecosystem is what it is for a reason, but when so much money is chasing trends, so much gets overlooked. What makes this further complicated is that early-stage investors depend on follow-on capital to make their own bets work. This can restrict any of us from going truly outside established networks.
I’m not the first person to notice this, and many people have attempted solutions. It would be great to build even more momentum behind approaches for different talent pipelines and companies that are doing more than just riding that moment’s trend. What keeps me hopeful is the idea that these structural gaps present opportunity. Not chasing the herd can pay dividends.