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 tackling three big problems outlined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically: #2 Hunger, #1 Poverty, and an unstated #0 Finance. The first two should be obvious given the food & agriculture focus of Africa Eats, but to be explicit: #2 Hunger Not every African is able to eat three meals per day. Not every African receives all the nutrition...
Africa Eats is an investment holding company with numerous operational and financial innovations. Of the latter is our novel form of loans repayable with equity. Typical early-stage and growth-stage investors focus on building a portfolio of equity investments or they provide debt, not both. What is different about Africa Eats is that we intend to own our investees forever. We thus focuses on...
Africa Eats is not yet a year old, but the choice of holdco is already showing its benefits over a traditional venture capital fund. Did you know the first-ever modern venture capital “fund” was not a fund, but a public holding company? American Research and Development. Boston. 1946. The reason the limited partnership structure became the norm is that the founders of ARD...
With rare exception,investment funds begin life with capital to invest, an area of interest, and fresh dealflow. Africa Eats is exceptional. We instead began with a portfolio of investments, curated over eight years, and only a modicum of capital, far less than the growth needs of that portfolio. The first few months of Africa Eats has thus been about having the new members of the headquarters...
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...
Africa Eats impacts are broad, as there are a multitude of business models in the portfolio. SDGs Simplest is to start with the SDGs. For each company, we simply tick off the SDGs they are most involved in tackling. Below is the histogram. 26 of the African Eats companies are tackling poverty. 19 tacking hunger and decent jobs. Half are production companies building industry and...
With the global pandemic site visits are not happening in 2020. But thanks to video cameras and the interest, you can take virtual tours of many of the Africa Eats companies.
Africa Eats is incorporated in Mauritius. Why Mauritius? It’s the #1 choice for headquarters of pan-African companies, especially holding companies, and Africa Eats is from Day 1 working across the African continent. Mauritius is also neutral ground. Africa Eats investee companies operate in 10 countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria, and...
With a broad collection of companies within Africa Eats comes good coverage on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. 26 of the African Eats companies are tackling poverty. 19 tacking hunger and decent jobs. Half are production companies building industry and infrastructure. Almost half working directly to reduce inequalities, some specifically gender equality. Those are the obvious and direct...