We are a dedicated group of diverse investors, entrepreneurs and specialists
General Partner
Kas Shirley
Kas is a founding member of Amano Capital and is the General Partner of Amano Ventures. He focuses on fund strategy, partnerships, value-add opportunities and financial analysis and has been accredited as one of the youngest fund managers on the African Continent. He has 10 years experience in Venture Capital and Corporate Finance in the United Kingdom and SADC. He has been at the forefront of the Zambian SME and technology ecosystem since 2018
He holds an upper class honours degree in Business Management from Loughborogh University, He sits on several boards in Zambia and has featured on TechCrunch, Pitchbook and Afridigest.
Entrepreneurship In Residence
Mkuzo Kuwani
Mkuzo joined Amano Capital in 2018 as an investment analyst. He subsequently got promoted to an investment associate, successfully closing on four equity capital raises amounting to $1.2m in the Amano Advisory portfolio. His roles range from strategic management, to corporate finance, to financial advisory, and milestone construction across the advisory portfolio.
He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Durham and is also the founding member of ComGrow, a top performing early stage financial technology in Zambia.
Chief Technology Advisor
Mikael Maingard
Mikael joined Amano in 2021 as technology advisor to the Amano Advisory portfolio. He specialises in full-stack development of applications, leading in project planning and implementation. Further, he offers broad-level advice to the Amano Ventures team in application analysis prior to investment decisions. He is one of Zambia’s leading technology developers.
He holds a BEng in Mechatronics, Robotics and Automation Engineering from Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Chief Compliance Advisor
Jonathan Chileshe
Jonathan joined the team in 2018. Apart from his role as Chief Compliance Officer, his experience has focused on legal and business roles in Zambia, South Africa and UK. His specialities are in business compliance, corporate finance and financial law. He focuses on portfolio compliance for the Amano Advisory team and equally assists in Legal Risk for Amano Ventures.
He holds an LLM from Manchester University and a bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of York. He also holds a BA in Politics from the University of Witwatersrand. He successfully passed the Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education (ZIALE) on his first attempt.