By Ghazali Ibrahim
At a time when many young Nigerians are struggling to find economic opportunities, 34-year-old entrepreneur John Adedamola Alamu has built a growing business empire spanning agribusiness, financial services, manufacturing and technology, starting with just ₦100,000.
Alamu, founder of Johnvents Group and CapitalSage Holdings, began his entrepreneurial journey in 2014 by providing small loans to farmers and market women in rural communities.
What started as an informal lending business has since grown into a collection of companies with operations and business interests extending beyond Nigeria.
According to a report by Billionaires.Africa published in September 2026, Alamu started with ₦100,000, lending money to farmers and market women who struggled to access financial support from conventional banks.
His experience working with farmers exposed him to the difficulties they faced in accessing finance, agricultural inputs and reliable markets.
Alamu, a statistician by training, previously worked in agricultural development, including at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), where he was involved in monitoring and evaluating agricultural programmes.
His exposure to the agricultural sector influenced his decision to build businesses around the challenges facing farmers.
In 2016, he established Johnvents, initially focusing on agricultural commodity trading, sourcing produce from farmers and supplying buyers.
The company subsequently expanded into agricultural processing, particularly cocoa, as Alamu sought to move beyond exporting raw commodities to manufacturing products that could command higher prices in international markets.
A major turning point came in 2021 when Johnvents acquired a cocoa processing facility in Akure, Ondo State.
In 2023, the company acquired Premium Cocoa Products in Ile-Oluji, Ondo State, increasing its combined installed cocoa processing capacity to approximately 48,000 tonnes annually.
The expansion positioned Johnvents as Nigeria’s largest cocoa processor, according to Billionaires.Africa.
The company now processes cocoa into products including cocoa butter, liquor and cake, which serve as raw materials for chocolate and other food manufacturing industries.
Beyond cocoa, Johnvents has expanded into other agricultural commodities and consumer products, including cashew, sesame, soybean oil, animal feed and bottled water.
Its parent business, CapitalSage Holdings, also has interests in financial services, digital banking, payments and healthcare.
The financial services business includes Kolomoni Microfinance Bank, which operates in Nigeria and The Gambia, alongside other financial technology and investment businesses.
The scale of the expansion has attracted international financing.
In February 2025, British International Investment committed $40.5 million to support the expansion of Johnvents’ cocoa processing operations in Ile-Oluji.
More recently, the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, disclosed plans for a financing package of up to $72 million for Johnvents.
The proposed financing, which was awaiting approval as of November 2026, is intended to support the construction of a sesame processing facility in Nigeria and a cashew processing plant in Ivory Coast.
According to Billionaires.Africa, the company also plans to expand its agricultural operations and support programmes for farmers.
The publication reported in September that businesses under Alamu’s two holding companies employed more than 2,000 people and worked with over 10,000 farmers.
Despite the rapid expansion, the entrepreneur has continued to identify agricultural processing as a major opportunity for Nigeria, arguing that the country loses significant economic value by exporting raw agricultural commodities instead of processing them locally.
In an October 2026 interview with TheCable, Alamu also highlighted challenges confronting Nigerian agribusinesses, including high energy costs, foreign exchange volatility, financing constraints and shortages of raw materials.
His business journey, from providing small loans to rural farmers to building a company with major cocoa processing facilities and international financing partnerships, has brought renewed attention to the possibilities of entrepreneurship in Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
