Despite over ¾ of Africans being farmers or children of farmers, not every African is able to eat three meals per day. Most of that is due to post-harvest losses, with up to ⅓ of the grain and almost ½ of all the fruit and vegetables grown never making it to a plate to eat.
Because of the post-harvest losses, Africa spends tens of billions of dollars per year importing food. Ending this downward spiral of mounting debt ends when Africa is a net exporter of food.
There is far too much friction in funding the existing, homegrown, for-profit solutions to hunger and poverty too often ignored by financial institutions. Not just initial funding, but growth-stage funding and critical financial services.
A solution for all these issues is Africa Eats, a holding company with a diverse set of African food/ag companies supporting hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, feeding millions of Africans.
Africa Eats does not try solving this problem from scratch, but instead begins with two dozen fledglings (graduates) of Fledge, the global network of conscious company accelerators. Dozens of young, for-profit, growing companies chosen from thousands as most likely to succeed, with impact embedded in their product or service, and who have all received two months of intense training, capital, and follow-on support. Companies which in 2022 earned over $24 million in aggregate revenues and which worked directly with over 100,000 smallholder farmers.
See how it works in more detail and contact us if you are interested in owning a piece of this fast-growing portfolio or if you can help us grow these companies even faster.
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...
Thanks to Wefunder, you can own shares in Africa Eats. 124 investors have joined in so far, pledging more than $425,000. The minimum investment is just $100 and anyone in the world can buy these shares. wefunder.com/africaeats The pitch deck is viewable on that crowdfunding site along with videos stories from the bizi. A video version of the pitch is watchable on Youtube below. Every dollar gets...
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...
Africa Eats began with a portfolio of 27 companies, all graduates of a Fledge accelerator program. Or more specifically, all with founders who attended a Fledge accelerator somewhere in the world, sometime since 2014. A few of these entrepreneurs founded more than one company, and while a few of those were included in the original 27, a few companies have been created since then. The 28th company...
From the founders of Geossy comes Amuria Honey, a new honey processor based in the Amuria District of Uganda.
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...
Today we launch a crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder, leveraging the American crowdfunding laws that let anyone anywhere in the world invest (legal-disclosure). Mid way through Day 1, and the total pledged investments is $326,178 toward our initial goal of $500,000. Pleas help us surpass that goal this week. Details on the company and investment opportunity are at Minimum investment is just $100...
Bees play an important role in Africa’s agricultural system, where they pollinate 80% of flowering plants and one-third of food crops. The economic benefits of bee pollination are also clear: The yields of major cash crops, such as sesame and cotton, increased by 60% in Burkina Faso when bees pollinated them. By fully investing in this value chain, top-producing African countries could earn...
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