How do you value a portfolio of young, fast-growing, private companies? One at a time. There are a multitude of valuation methodologies for public companies, most of which do not work for companies with 50%+ annual growth, nor for any company that is plowing profits back into the company to keep up or speed up that growth rate. Investopedia has a good primer on valuation. Africa Eats uses a...
There are two ways to solve the biggest problems of the world (like hunger and poverty): top-down and bottom-up. Governments, foundations, and most investors take the top-down approach. They look at a region like Africa, declare is “undeveloped” and bring to it solutions they’ve seen elsewhere, which may or may not actually solve the problems. Africa Eats uses a very different...
2022 begins the third calendar year of operations for Africa Eats. One unique aspect of the investment holding company is that it included a portfolio of companies from Day 1. Despite the pandemic we not only didn’t have any failures in these past two years but our entrepreneurs have grabbed new opportunities and spun-off or spin-up new companies, and we’ve added most of them to the...
5 months ago we posted: What sets elephants apart is that they can grow to be huge, that they grow steadily and rather quickly, and that most of all, while they have the mystique like a unicorn, they are real, not mythical. How fast do our elephants grow? Above are the actual revenues from four of the largest companies in the Africa Eats portfolio. The eight largest companies are expected to each...
This week we gathered together the (co)founders and managers of our portfolio companies under a tent in Nairobi, Kenya. Over 50 attendees, flying and driving in from 10 countries across the continent. Over two days we worked together to discover new common challenges, to solve issues, and to find new ways to work together to seize the opportunities building the food/ag supply chain across Africa...
Podcast #1 Wishes Granted, interviews of the top impact funders so that entrepreneurs and funders, no matter what continent they are on, can connect and build a great future. Today we talked about Africa Eats which is not an investment fund but a holding company–a totally new way to provide capital to entrepreneurs that I think we will see a lot more of. You can best think of Africa Eats as...
There are so many incredible stories to share at Africa Eats. Here is a sampling of the type of solutions we’ve invested in. Homegrown, for-profit solutions with measurable impacts lessening hunger and poverty across Africa.
For more stories, listen to The Opportunity is Africa, a podcast brought to you by Africa Eats
Africa Eats was in the news this weekend: Novel Holding Company Africa Eats Has Raised $1.8 Million For Its Impact Startups Anne Field of Forbes did a lovely job explaining why the company was formed, how it is tackling hunger and poverty, and how the holding company model generally works. And note that between the time of the interview and publication, three more investors committed another...
What do 27 baby elephant companies do with $2 million of growth capital? They grow. Fast. Africa Eats Ltd. began just over a year ago with 27 fledglings all growing, but nearly all lacking the resources to grow as quickly as they desired. A year later, this novel investment holding company has raised over $2 million to help meet those needs. Where did that money go? Operational capital –...
Zebra’s may fix what Unicorns break, but that hasn’t stopped the investing world from their focus on hunting unicorns. Maybe a little in the impact investing space, but there the world of young companies is split into “startups” and “SMEs” with the latter still looked upon as potential unicorns and the latter often derided as unworthy of investment. Rather than debate either of those two...