Every year at Sankalp Africa and countless other conferences the big NGOs, governments, and other institutions talk about helping smallholder farmers. The story rarely changes. Post-harvest losses. Low yields. More and better training. At Africa Eats, we think there is a better, far more efficient solution to these problems. Rather than funding and training farmers, we invest in and support the...
Most early-stage and growth-stage startup investors focus on valuation, and the question of whether the investee’s valuation can grow by an order of magnitude or more in the next decade. At Africa Eats, we do look at that, but we focus even more on how efficient our investees are with the money we provide them. How efficient is their use of capital? Specifically, we compute a simple ratio...
How do you get from problem to solution to profitable company in Africa? Like everywhere else, it’s complicated, but the third step is simple. Step 1, find a problem and develop a solution that customers will pay for. For Africa Eats, that problem is most often two sided, lack of demand by smallholder farmers and lack of supply by formal and informal restaurants and retailers. Step 2...
Africa Eats is a holding company that began with two dozen investees. That is accurate, but “investee” isn’t the right word. That word misses the relationships we’ve build with these companies over the past six years through their participate at and after a Fledge accelerator. Africa Eats is a holding company with two dozen subsidiaries. No, that isn’t right either...
With bizi located in eight countries across the second largest continent on Earth, with operations spread out within those countries, and often operations crossing into neighboring countries, it is a huge undertaking to visit even a handful of these companies. The next best way to visit is through site visit videos:
Africa Eats is incorporated in Mauritius. Why Mauritius? It’s the #1 choice for headquarters of pan-African companies, especially investment companies. Mauritius is also neutral ground. Africa Eats investee companies operate in many countries in many regions of Africa. Best for headquarters is to add to that diversity instead of playing any favorites. Lastly, Mauritius has an excellent...