After attending Sankalp Africa and spending two days in-person with the bizi CEOs and co-founders, it was time to visit a few bizi in person on the other side of Kenya. Boka Eats in Kisii After visiting Boka Eats we met Governor Simba Arati (who didn’t allow cameras in the meeting). The EU paid for the factory and Kisii County is the landlord, so we met to tell him about Africa Eats and our...
The first container of Swahili Honey beeswax and honey is on its way from Tanzania to Poland.
A conversation with Luni Libes, serial entrepreneur and investor, about the enormous opportunities of African food companies and on buying from smallholder farmers and selling into the local regional markets. We also discuss why the traditional venture capital model doesn’t make any sense and a holding company does, plus why and how he wants to take the holding company public in a few years’ time...
The biggest learning from 2022 is that the plan envisioned in 2018 works. In 2018, the vision was an investment holding company that helps high growth food/ag-focused SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) in Africa grow faster than traditional venture capital or debt funds. The core of the plan was to fill in the “missing middle” of capital for a few dozen companies, providing them the...
Nothing replaces visiting companies in person. Next best from that are the video guided tours. If you’ve not watched all of those, try that tonight instead of Netflix. Beyond that, here are some images from the bizi in 2022. An original truck from TRUK Rwanda The winning pitch from East Africa Fruits Ziweto‘s new animal feed factory Zamgoat processing goats Amuria Honey beehive...
Africa’s Business Heroes is a seven-month competition that winnows tens of thousands of African entrepreneurs down to 10 on-stage live on TV, to 3 for a final stage of Q&A with live judges, to 1 grand prize winner. The 2022 Africa Business Hero is Elia Timotheo, founder/CEO of East Africa Fruits. The winning 3-minute pitch Highlights from the Grand Finale video stream East Africa Fruits...
“The Missing Middle” is what we call the gap in finance the majority of entrepreneurs face in getting from a viable prototype or early customers to a full-scale proven business. This talk was presented at Sankalp Global 2022 by Luni Libes, co-founder and CEO of Africa Eats. In Part 1, Luni explains who he is, and how he came to fill in this otherwise missing middle. In Part 2...
Ziweto Enterprise now manufacturers animal feed concentrates in Lilongwe, Malawi, helping lower the cost of animal feeds for smallholder farmers in Malawi, making livestock more affordable to more farmers.
Entrepreneurship is typically a lonely pursuit, with founders using the advisors, board members, and investors for support, but usually without a group of peers to call upon. That isn’t true at Africa Eats. Our founders have dozens of fellow founders to call upon for advice… and they do. From advice on equipment vendors to advice on strategic decisions to market information spanning...
Paniel Meat Processing and Livestock Bank, two companies created by the same founder merged back together in early 2022. Business is good, growing from $35,000 in annual revenues back in 2017 to over $1.5 million USD in 2022.
In short… it works. Quite well. To see what that means in practice, below is a site visit video shot this month in Kigali, Rwanda.