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.
The “Missing Middle” of capital is the funding for promising young companies between their initial idea and their first few million dollars of revenues. As you can imagine, getting to even $1 million USD in annual revenue is a challenge for African entrepreneurs given relatively few Angels and only a handful of seed funds. Africa Eats helped of our of bizi grow from $100,000 to over...
While they aren’t often the focus of news media, hunger and undernourishment are problems plaguing millions of people every day. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 3 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020, an additional 112 million more people than in 2019. The increase was partly because of rising food prices, with the average cost of a healthy...
This year will mark the milestone of 8 billion people living on Earth. Whenever the global population is discussed the 1.4 billion Chinese and 1.3 billion Indians are touted. The other group of 1.4 billion people live on the continent of Africa.