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 in the portfolio for other site visit videos.
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...
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...
