As experienced investors and operators our team of partners have refined their craft in venture investing and supporting our founders across various verticals.
Our Team

Steven Grin
MANAGING PARTNER
Steven is a seasoned entrepreneur and investment professional with twenty years of experience investing as a principal and fund manager across the globe. He has extensive experience in real estate development, energy, and venture investing. Prior to co-founding Lateral Frontiers, Steven was a Director in the Office of the President of Guyana where he held responsibility for the implementation of their low-carbon development strategy and the execution of large-scale initiatives in the energy and infrastructure sectors. Steven started his career in real estate and project finance at the Moinian Group and later co-founded the private equity firm Capstone Equities. Steven graduated from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and has a B.A. in Finance and Philosophy from New York University.

Samakab Hashi
PARTNER
Samakab has over a decades experience in investing in early stage and fast growing companies across developed and emerging markets. Prior to joining Lateral Frontiers, he established the Middle Eastern presence of Avanz Capital an emerging market growth focused Private Equity firm where he focused on making investments across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Samakab started his career as an investment banker in London working across Corporate Restructuring, Leveraged Finance and Growth Finance with the Lloyds Banking group, before joining the Private Equity arm of Allstate Investments a US institutional investor. During his time at Allstate, Samakab invested circa $1 billion in PE deals across Africa Asia and Europe. Samakab has earned a B.A in Law with Business before going on to complete an MSc in International Business from the University of Nottingham. He is originally from East Africa and is based in our Nairobi office, Kenya.

Rob Eloff
MANAGING PARTNER
Rob has spent his career investing, living and working in developing markets. Prior to co-founding Lateral Frontiers he was a Venture Partner with Conversion Capital and established Frontier Dawn Partners, an evergreen vehicle for capital deployment to early stage, technology enabled founding teams in sub-Saharan Africa. Rob started his career in capital markets at JP Morgan, Johannesburg, became an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and Investment Director at ACI. He spent ten years based in Johannesburg, Moscow and London transitioning across hedge fund coverage and private equity buyout advisory in markets including sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Rob holds a masters degree in finance from Cambridge University and a bachelors degree with dual majors in philosophy and economics from the University of Cape Town.

Hayden Simmons
VENTURE PARTNER
Hayden has been working in emerging market fintech for most of his career. He graduated from Colorado College in 2007, with an Economic Development major and Spanish minor, having written his thesis on the impact of collectivized remittances in rural Mexico. He spent the early part of his career on the non-profit side, connecting venture-backed remittance startups with immigrant communities for product-market fit testing. Hayden then spent 4 years at Juvo, managing strategic partnerships across LatAm, Africa and Southeast Asia, before helping Migo expand from Nigeria into Latin America. Currently, Hayden is working on variety of strategy and BD projects supporting Facebook’s global blockchain-powered mobile money project (Libra). He is actively advising a number of early-stage African fintechs, is a fledgling angel investor, and recently joined Lateral Frontiers as a Venture Partner. In his spare time, he enjoys rock climbing, guitar and tending to his agave farm.

Lorraine Kageni Maina
VENTURE PARTNER
Lorraine has spent over 15+ years across Technology, Banking and Consumer goods sectors working for Microsoft, ABSA and Unilever. She excels at scaling products and companies in African Markets having worked as head of enterprise sales at Microsoft covering West, East and Central Africa and as Head of Retail products at ABSA Kenya where she oversaw conceptualizing, developing and implementing plans for new and existing products. Lorraine has a wealth of experience working with tech-enabled startups through her capacity as a mentor at Endeavour and an advisor at Antler. She has worked with some of Africa’s top startups like Africa’s Talking and currently works with a LF portfolio company PNGme as Chief Strategy Officer. Lorraine studied International Relations, International Law with a Focus on Boundary Dispute Resolution from the University of London (SOAS) And Politics and Social Policy from Bristol University.

Shreyas Mishra
ANALYST
Shreyas joined Lateral Frontiers Nairobi as a venture analyst. He holds an undergraduate degree in Business Management from the University of Sheffield, and a master’s degree in International Finance and has prior work experience in the healthcare sectors in India and Kenya.

Ebby Wachira
INTERN ANALYST
Ebby joined Lateral Frontiers Nairobi as an intern analyst. She has 2+ years’ work experience across the Kenyan Financial services including insurance, asset management and Investment Banking. Prior to joining Lateral, she was an equities research Analyst intern at Dyer and Blair Investment bank, a leading Investment Bank in East Africa covering banking and construction sectors. Ebby holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Eldoret and finds a balance in her life in the outdoors.
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Bryan Njuguna Kamau
INTERN ANALYST
Bryan is an Intern Analyst at Lateral Frontiers. Before joining, he worked as a Business Developer and Account Manager at Yusudi Africa, where he worked with founders to hire and retain qualified entry-level sales employees. Bryan holds an undergraduate degree in Purchasing and Supplies Management from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Outside of work, Bryan enjoys watching and analyzing basketball as well as listening to podcasts.
Our GP Advisory Board

Haydee Celaya
MANAGING FUND
MANAGEMENT & STRUCTURING
Co-founder and CIO of Avanz Capital. Former Director PE Funds at IFC

Karim Shariff
GOVERNANCE
Principal at Majlis Investments and co-founder Cranemere Africa

Christian Lawless
TECHNOLOGY
Founder and Managing Partner Conversion Capital, a leading New York based Fintech venture fund with two funds under management

Tunde Onitiri
TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA
M.D. Potomac Group, LLC previously M.D. at Yaatra Ventures, former Senior Manager for Venture Capital at IFC

Aniket Shah
CLIMATE FINANCE
Head of Sustainable Investing Oppenheimer Funds. Former lead on global sustainability for Investec