Our Story

African businesses with high growth potential often operate in essential yet overlooked industries, facing operational and strategic challenges that can limit their impact. Secha — meaning “to search” or “to look for” in Tsonga — was founded to uncover this hidden or misunderstood potential and help businesses thrive.

Co-founded by Brendan J. Mullen, Rushil K. Vallabh, and Dr. Nombuso L. Nkambule, the firm was born out of a shared belief that Africa’s most transformative businesses don’t lack ambition—they lack access to talent and capital. 

With backgrounds in management consulting and finance, Brendan and Rushil wanted to move beyond advising and investing from a distance to creating measurable, hands-on impact. As a young black South African, Nombuso was inspired by her mother’s journey—seeing both the barriers she faced in accessing capital and talent and the power of entrepreneurship to build livelihoods and drive growth. We set out to reimagine how investment and operational expertise could work in tandem to unlock Africa’s potential. This is the foundation of Execution Capital — a simplified, intensified approach to investing in Africa, built on embedding human talent and financial capital directly into businesses to accelerate lasting growth.

Secha Capital partners with entrepreneurs to unlock growth, accelerate scaling, and build sustainable operations. By embedding our operational growth expertise directly into portfolio companies, we work shoulder to shoulder with teams to solve complex challenges, implement scalable systems, and foster innovation. Every action we take is designed to create tangible economic, social, and organisational impact.

By solving problems in real time and scaling operations, we deliver meaningful impact and sustainable success. With a hands-on, agile, and purpose-driven approach, Secha Capital creates enduring economic and social value across Africa and beyond. 

We don’t just invest—we accelerate lasting growth