Why does Africa lag behind the rest of the world as measured by economic development? Why didn’t Africa follow along with the growth of the Asian Tigers, China, India, and Southeast Asia? What was missing? Joe Studwell gives a plausible explanation in his new book, How Africa Works. TL;DR, the answer is population density. That isn’t a factor that I had ever considered, as Africa...
Back in the dot-com bubble, my second-ever startup filed the paperwork to go public, but the NASDAQ topped off before we were able to complete that process. It’s long been a life goal to be part of a company to finish that process. That goal was not only achieved today, but by Africa Eats, my eighth startup. I’m now CEO of a public company. 🙂 Africa Eats is an investment company...
The GDP per capita metric is helpful to gauge the level of economic development within a region, but misleading in that the metric gets skewed by extraction-based industries like mining and oil (which is why Botswana, Namibia, and Gabon) are higher than their neighboring countries). Visual Capitalist has published a map of the per-capital GDPs of most of the African nations (in most cases rounded...
In today’s episode of Superpowers for Good, I had the pleasure of welcoming back a dear friend and visionary entrepreneur, Luni Libes, the CEO of Africa Eats. Luni is not only an inspiring leader but also a key investor in the super crowd. His innovative company, Africa Eats, is on a mission to end hunger and poverty in Africa through a unique for-profit model, currently crowdfunding on WeFunder...
My refrigerator died last week, and with that, my family and I lived with an “ice box” in its place, using frozen bottles of water as the source of cooling until today, when the new refrigerator was installed. Refrigeration is a service billions of us take for granted. Living without it for a week helps one ungrant that taking (or however that is supposed to be phrased). All of this...
Last month I was in Tanzania visiting three Africa Eats‘ investees: Swahili Honey, Goldenpot, and Rogathe Dairy. Below are three short videos showing off their factories. All of these companies have grown more than 10x since I first met them, some of them growing that fast in two years. See the post on fast-growing SMEs to see each of their growth stories, and click on the other companies...
1.4 billion people live in Africa. But that population is far from evenly distributed. The southern edge of the Sahara is clearly visible in West Africa, as is the enormous population in Nigeria. Then over in East Africa it is even denser in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and over into Rwanda around Lake Victoria and Lake Kivu, and yet denser still down in Malawi. See the original post on www...
Other people, see things and . . . say ‘Why?’ . . . But I dream things that never were– and I say: ‘Why not?’ – George Bernard Shaw This has shown in my 30+ year career repeatedly. Most recently a few months ago, when pondering the “Missing Middle” of capital for startups in general, and SMEs in Africa specifically. Why? Why is it taking so long for...
There is no multi-national or other organizations that uses the name “Global South” and thus no clear cut definition of which countries are included when you use that term. In general, this is the most recent way to talk about the poorer countries with “emerging markets”, formerly known as “developing” economies, and before that the “3rd World”. The...
I’m often asked what I do. I invest in young companies and help them scale up. That is true but a bit vague. So today let me show you what I mean by scale up, using seven examples from my Africa Eats portfolio. Africa Eats invests in companies building the food/ag supply chain, filling in the gaps of business infrastructure, and our progress ending hunger and poverty. I met all of the...
