Mention Mauritius and most South Africans will think of its pristine beaches and luxury resorts, but this small country is becoming a big business player not only in Africa but on a global scale.
Mauritius may just be an island — its annual tourist influx of 1.4 million outnumbers its own population of around 1.3 million — but this hasn’t stopped it, over the past three decades, from growing into a giant on the business front.
Many ‘Firsts’
As far as the continent goes, it’s already racked up a number of African “firsts” in terms of international business achievements. These include Economic Freedom of the World (2017, Fraser Institute), Forbes Survey of Best Countries for Business (2017) and the Global Competitiveness Index (2017–2018).
It also secured first place in Africa and 25th position overall out of 190 countries on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report, receiving recognition in terms of its political, social and economic stability, efficient and effective regulatory framework, state-of-the-art infrastructure, transparent and innovative legal framework and its highly competitive tax system.
With a government focused on promoting foreign and domestic investment, it has enabled free repatriation of profits, no withholding tax on dividends, interest and royalties, no capital gains tax, and no estate duty, inheritance tax or gift tax. Plus it has 44 tax treaties with countries across the globe and another 32 in various stages of negotiation and ratification.
Together with its low tax rates, its fiscal regime has seen it being listed in 2017 on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) “white list” in terms of transparency and being a fully compliant tax jurisdiction in terms of best practice international standards. It was, indeed, one of only three such top-rated jurisdictions in the world.
It is welcoming foreigners with open arms and — as a country in Africa — it’s certainly giving South Africa a run for its money.
Along with 4% growth in its economy, its reputation is also growing for being the best financial hub and base for businesses coming to Africa.
Investors from places such as France, India, and the UK — not to mention South Africa itself — are all seeing it as a safe place to set up shop. It’s why we, as The Business Exchange (TBE) with our own home base in South Africa, have set up our latest coworking space here, to meet the growing demand for office space on the island. It’s a destination we believe is out-investing South Africa
A Business Safe Haven
A safe investment climate, efficient financial infrastructure and political stability are always going to be highly conducive towards attracting and conducting business. Little over an hour longer in flying time than the time it takes to travel between Cape Town and Johannesburg, the third smallest country in Africa is, therefore, becoming an attractive destination in which to live, work, play and stay… quite possibly forever.
Its private and government institutions are strong. Good schooling (in English with French as a second language), state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, and a low crime rate are starting to see a number of South Africans turning their heads north in its direction — families as well as companies.
As a property ownership destination, it’s already been proving its worth for a number of years now, initially for holiday and second homes but, today, increasingly for residency, relocation and retirement. A huge attraction for investors and in particular those looking to attain passive rental income, has been its property development schemes for foreign non-citizen investment. An investment of $500 000 or more in a PDS will also grant an investor permanent residence status.
And, as we ourselves have found as The Business Exchange, there’s a great deal that’s attractive to invest in from a business perspective as well. Not only is there an ideal opportunity for us to service the rapidly growing need for professional office space on the island, but we’ve also decided to use the country as the perfect base from which to launch our own growth into the rest of Africa. Legislation around setting up companies and ownership structures in Mauritius are quite straightforward and relatively simple to administer with the right partners and advisors onboard.
It may well have been a place of beaches to start with, a few decades ago — and, believe me, those pristine sands are still just as beautiful — but it’s business opportunities are now among its biggest attractions. And as South Africa continues to reflect uncertainty, I’ve no doubt that Mauritius’s positive offerings will continue to grow even brighter.
David Seinker is the CEO of The Business Place, an office and co-working space with a number of locations throughout Johannesburg — and now in Mauritius.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world
Business people across the continent have called on the governments and regional development institutions to join hands in fashioning out ways to help reduce the high business risk in the continent. This call was made against the backdrop of recent findings by global consultancy firm PwC Group which identifies among other things the growing socio-political and economic uncertainties are undermining efforts by African businesses to grow, and by extension contribute to the growth of the continent. Worst hit by this development are small to medium scale businesses and the conglomerates and multinationals have the financial muscle and political connection to push through without much hassles.
African business team
An executive of a Lagos based microfinance bank that funds small and medium scale businesses that service the sub region explained that some of the present policies put small businesses that rely on regional markets at a disadvantage whereas big multinationals survive because they have established outposts across the countries which help them to mitigate some of these challenges. He cited example with a very popular household manufacturing conglomerate Unilever Group which he said manufactures some of its products in either Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire of Nigeria— depending on which country provides comparative advantage in manufacturing a particular product–and distribute across the region using its well oiled logistics network. But smaller holdings that do not have such huge capacity are left out in the cold, he said.
The Report captures some of the stumbling blocks businesses face in the face of bureaucratic redtapes across the continent. For example, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol mandates free movement of goods and services across the 15 member countries, but this exists only on paper as businesses are made to go through untold hardships at various border posts incurring high demurrage and in some instances, loss due to border thefts and other hazards. Another challenge being faced by businesses is exchange rate volatility between the three major currencies in the region—naira, CFA Franc, and cedi— this has remained a detriment to regional business transactions in the region.
For example a Nigerian businessman who spoke with this Correspondent pointed out that it has become extremely difficult to make estimates of cost of logistics and successfully build it into a business plan because of policy changes along the West African coast. He said that sometimes, between the time it takes to load his goods in Lagos, and offload in Accra Ghana, he may be shocked with three to four different policy changes affecting excise and duties on the goods. He lamented that it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate in the region, doubting the rhetoric of economic integration being parroted by African leaders on a daily basis.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Traditionally, startup businesses draft a business plan for three specific reasons: to articulate their vision for the business, to document how they plan to solve key challenges, and to pitch their business idea to potential investors.
But what if I told you that business plans for startup companies are usually not worth the effort?
My many years of experience working with startups, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists has led me to conclude that business plans are largely a waste of time for the following reasons:
They are time consuming. Thorough business plans take a long time to prepare, even if you use business planning software.
They get outdated quickly. Your business plan quickly becomes obsolete as you encounter operational and marketing issues.
Nobody has time to read them. Prospective investors and venture capitalists don’t usually have the time or interest to slog through such a document. They review hundreds if not thousands of startup opportunities, so you have to grab their attention with something much shorter.
So instead of wasting your valuable time preparing a business plan, I suggest that you do these five things instead when launching your startup:
Business plans for startup companies are usually not worth the effort. Learn what you should be focusing on instead.
1. Prepare a Great Investor Pitch Deck for Prospective Investors
Developing an engaging “pitch deck” to present your company to prospective investors instead of a business plan is the new norm. The pitch deck typically consists of 15–20 PowerPoint slides and is intended to showcase the company’s products, technology, and team to the investors.
Raising capital from investors is difficult and time consuming. Therefore, it’s crucial that a startup seeking funding absolutely nails its investor pitch deck and articulates a compelling and interesting story in the short time it has during the presentation.
You want your investor pitch deck to cover the following topics, roughly in the order set forth here and with titles along the lines of the following:
Company Overview (give a summary overview of the company)
Mission/Vision of the Company (what is the mission and vision?)
The Team (who are key team players? what is their relevant background?)
The Problem (what big problem are you trying to solve?)
The Solution (what is your proposed solution? why is it better than other solutions or products?)
The Market Opportunity (how big is the addressable market?)
The Product (give specifics on the product)
The Customers (who are the target customers? why will there be a big demand from these customers?)
The Technology (what is the underlying technology? how is it differentiated?)
The Competition (who are the key competitors?)
Traction (early customers, early adopters, partnerships)
Business Model (what is the business model?)
The Marketing Plan (how do you plan to market? what do you anticipate for customer acquisition costs vs. the lifetime value of the customer?)
Financials (actual and projected profit & loss and cash flow)
The Ask (how much capital you are trying to raise?)
Too many startups make a number of avoidable mistakes when creating their investor pitch decks. Here is a list of preliminary do’s and don’ts to keep in mind:
Pitch Deck Do’s
Do include this wording at the bottom left of the pitch deck cover page: “Confidential and Proprietary. Copyright by [Name of Company]. [Year]. All Rights Reserved.”
Do convince the viewer of why the market opportunity is large.
Do include visually interesting graphics and images.
Do send the pitch deck in a PDF format to prospective investors in advance of a meeting. Don’t force the investor to get it from Google Docs, Dropbox, or some other online service, as you are just putting up a barrier to the investor actually reading it.
Do plan to have a demo of your product as part of the in-person presentation.
Do tell a compelling, memorable, and interesting story that shows your passion for the business.
Do show that you have more than just an idea, and that you have gotten early traction on developing the product, getting customers, or signing up partners.
Do have a sound bite for investors to remember you by.
Do use a consistent font size, color, and header title style throughout the slides.
Pitch Deck Don’ts
Don’t make the pitch deck more than 15–20 slides long (investors have limited attention spans).
Don’t have too many wordy slides.
Don’t provide excessive financial details, as that can be provided in a follow-up.
Don’t try to cover everything in the pitch deck. Your in-person presentation will give you an opportunity to add and highlight key information.
Don’t use a lot of jargon or acronyms that the investor may not immediately understand.
Don’t underestimate or belittle the competition.
Don’t have your pitch deck look out of date. You don’t want a date on the cover page that is several months old (that is why I avoid putting a date on the cover page at all). And you don’t want information or metrics in the deck about your business that look stale or outdated.
Don’t have a poor layout, bad graphics, or a low-quality “look and feel.” Think about hiring a graphic designer to give your pitch desk a more professional look.
2. Focus on Building a Good Prototype Product
Build version 1 of your product. Having a prototype of your product makes it easier to sell your vision to investors. It also gives you some momentum and traction and helps you recruit partners and employees. Undoubtedly, version 1 of your product will not be as good as version 2 or version 3, but you need to start somewhere.
When starting out, your product has to be at least good if not great. It must be differentiated in some meaningful and important way from the offerings of your competition. Everything else follows from this key principle. Don’t drag your feet on getting your product out to market, since early customer feedback is one of the best ways to help improve your product.
Of course, you want a “minimum viable product” (MVP) to begin with, but even that product should be good and differentiated from the competition. Having a “beta” test product works for many startups as they work the bugs out from user reactions. As Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook has said, “Done is better than perfect.”
3. Thoroughly Research the Market Opportunity and Your Competition
Make sure you are thoroughly researching the market opportunity and competitive products or services, and keep on top of new developments and announcements from your competitors. One way to do this is to set up a Google alert to notify you when any new information about those companies appears online.
Expect that prospective investors in your company will ask questions about the market opportunity and your competitors. Any entrepreneurs who say that “we don’t have competitors” will have credibility problems. So anticipate these questions from investors:
How big is the addressable market? How much of it can the company realistically capture?
Who are the company’s principal competitors?
What traction have those competitors obtained?
What gives your company the competitive advantage?
Compared to these other companies, how do you compete with respect to price, features, and performance?
It can be important to prepare detailed financial projections for the business, for the following reasons:
To determine whether the business will ultimately be profitable
To determine your cash “burn” before you get cash flow profitable, showing how much startup capital you will need
To lay out your key financial assumptions (price per product, cost of developing the product, marketing expenses, employee expenses, rent and overhead, gross margins, and much more) so that you and others can test the reasonableness of the assumptions
To have those projections ready and credible when investors inevitably ask for them
Financial projections will typically be for a 3–5 year period and will include:
Profit and loss statement
Cash flow statement
Detailed categories of income and expenses
Balance sheet
Underlying assumptions
Of course, your financial projections will not be perfectly matched with your actual results, but your financial projections can be revised as you move through the stages of your business.
5. Make Sure You Have Thought Through the Reasons Why Startups Don’t Get Funded By Investors
There are a variety of reasons why investors turn down startups and entrepreneurs. So understand these reasons and make sure they don’t apply to you:
The business idea is too small
Your executive summary or pitch deck is underwhelming
You haven’t thought through the questions that investors will likely ask
You just have an idea and you haven’t gotten any traction yet
You don’t have the right management team
You don’t understand the competition
There are already strong competitors who are well capitalized
Your financial projections are unrealistic
You aren’t convincing about the need for your product or service
You don’t articulate how you plan to cost-effectively market to and obtain customers
You don’t have a good prototype of your product
Remember, you don’t need a long business plan for your startup. There are more important things you can do to build a successful business.
Richard Harroch is the Managing Director and Global Head of M&A for VantagePoint Capital P… He writes about startups, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions and Internet companies.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
The cost of a bad hire or exit is on average three times the annual salary of that position, once all bottom-line costs are included in calculations. This is an outrageous cost and one of the reasons HR leaders have to ensure that their companies must hire the right fit and effectively plan for succession, at all levels. One pioneering HR consulting company is trailblazing the course to help Nigerian companies achieve this.
On Tuesday, July 30th, 2019, over 50 HR Experts and Top Business professionals gathered at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Lagos Nigeria to discuss human resource management strategies that help organizations plan for the right hire, identify, develop and retain top-performing talent and position teams for seamless succession.
This event, ‘Talking Talent’, is the maiden edition of a series of HR workshops planned to take place across different countries in Africa and is the brainchild of The African Talent Company (TATC), a Pan-African recruitment firm offering ‘Fit-For-Purpose’ HR solutions across Talent Acquisition, HR Technology, Data Analysis, and Consultancy.
Senior HR professionals from a wide range of top companies and industries, such as Nigerian Breweries, Mondelez, Rand Merchant Bank, Rossetti Pivot, were in attendance as speakers, panelists, and workshop participants.
There were presentations and panel discussions, however, the key activity that struck a chord with the participants was the break-away sessions to deep dive on three key HR pain points: ‘Hiring Right’, ‘Managing Talent’ and ‘Succession Planning’. These one-on-one sessions were respectively led by three talent Gurus: Heather O’Shea – Managing Partner, TATC; Martin Sutherland – Global Director, PeopleTree Group and Brett Mulder – COO, PeopleTree Group.
One insight that stood out, was the fact that succession planning was not commonly practiced at Nigerian companies and that implies that teams do not have the required bench strength and had to be reset whenever top performers leave.
It was quite a revelation as HR leaders at the workshop said they faced challenges which varied from the lack of support from team members who refused to mentor designated successors, to HR teams who did not know how to design and implement a succession plan.
Brett Mulder, who led the breakout group on Succession planning, said, “Succession planning is a risk management strategy to ensure leadership continuity, preserve institutional knowledge and, in most cases, develop talent from within the organisation.
Gaining commitment from the executive and creating a structured roadmap to guide your investment in time, is critical in implementing a plan that ensures successors actually succeed.
Identify key roles for succession, adopt an evidence-based approach to assessing readiness, identify pools of talent that could potentially fill these roles and finally develop employees to be ready for advancement into key roles.”
Heather O’Shea, who focused on hiring right, also said, “Top companies all struggle with getting their workforce planning correct, not knowing when to ‘Buy, Borrow, Build or Bind’ the skill. This can be very costly, from a time, money and emotional perspective and we want to make it easy for HR leaders to understand how to choose the right strategy”. To facilitate this learning, participants were given a free workforce planning template and a demonstration on how to use this template at their respective companies.
During the panel discussion, chaired by Jobberman CEO, Hilda Kragha, she mentioned, “When you find good people, as an organization, you need to make your value proposition interesting for them at every stage of their journey with you, so they are motivated to deliver more, for longer”.
The panel was discussing ‘How to identify top performers and how to retain them’ and had Martin Sutherland on the panel, who also said, “Personalising employee engagement is important, anonymous surveys don’t help you tailor custom retention actions for high-value individuals.”
In engagements with TATC clients in 2019, they asked: “How do I future-proof my business to ensure I have the right skills to continue to grow well past 2020?”.
This was the key pain point, and to address this, TATC decided to not hold “‘another conference”‘ but rather to have a workshop, where TATC could share insights and offer their talent specialists who could bring their expertise to share with clients.
Delegates were offered the opportunity to have one-on-one sessions to speak about their challenges because TATC wanted to offer the expertise to clients in an open, yet intimate forum.
The results were intriguing, as key insights around the challenges HR leaders face in succession planning and workforce planning were discovered and discussed. This is a high-impact workshop series that will occur regularly across the different markets that TATC operate.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, posted Africa’s highest average daily rate (ADR), according to the most recent 12-month data from STR . The market will play host to the Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) on 23-25 September at the Sheraton Addis.
From July 2018 through June 2019, Addis Ababa registered an absolute ADR of US$163.79 when measured in constant currency, which removes the effects of inflation. That figure was a 1.1% increase year over year. The next closest STR-defined markets in Africa were Accra Area, Ghana (US$160.34) and Lagos Area, Nigeria (US$132.51).
“Addis Ababa continues to maintain high ADR levels when compared internationally,” said Thomas Emanuel, a director for STR. “The city has multiple demand drivers, such as a growing economy, successful airline and its status as the diplomatic capital for Africa.
Air connections and ease of access compared with other cities also factor in the equation for strong demand, which provides hoteliers with the confidence to maintain rate levels.
“With healthy performance comes to interest in investment. The market’s pipeline is strong with 22 hotels and 4,820 rooms in active development. We will continue to monitor these new openings to see how the market reacts once these additional rooms open.”
Emanuel will present the latest hotel performance and development insights on the Tuesday (24 September) of AHIF.
“Hosting high-profile international meetings like AHIF is one factor that has helped Addis to maintain its position as the city with the most expensive hotel accommodation in Africa,” said Matthew Weihs, Managing Director, Bench Events (AHIF organizer). “Our delegates will be looking carefully to see if the addition of a lot more high-quality accommodation and meeting space will depress room rates or help Addis become even more attractive as a destination.”
Addis Ababa’s occupancy over the same 12-month time period was 58.4%, up 6.5% year over year. Cairo & Giza was the continent’s occupancy leader at 74.5%. Cape Town Centre, South Africa (65.0%), ranked second in the metric followed by Accra Area (59.7%).
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Nigerian startups too are having a field day here. TechAdvance, leading Nigerian payment application development company is the latest to join startup fundraising bandwagon. The payment solution has raised $1m in new funding, putting the startup’s valuation at USD $20M.
Here Is The Deal
The investment was led by the Bahrain-based energy investment company Lamar Holding.
Lamar’s investment will support TechAdvance’s strategy to substantially expand its global expansion.
The move will broaden Lamar’s successful portfolio into the technology industry, and give the company a foothold into the African continent.
‘‘The payments space in emerging markets is buzzing with opportunities but faces a number of major barriers. These funds will allow us to shift our focus to these opportunities — especially the launch of our digital bank, without compromising our existing business lines,” Founder and CEO of TechAdvance, Edmund Olotu said.
A Glance At Lamar Holding
Lamar Holding is an established developer and long-term operator of projects across Saudi Arabia’s national energy infrastructure network. Through a portfolio of companies and strategic joint ventures, Lamar Holding has garnered an unrivaled record of winning and delivering contracts in the Saudi energy market.
Why Lamar Holding Chose To Invest In TechAdvance
On why TechAdvance, Hani Abdulhadi, Vice President at Lamar Holding noted:
“We are delighted to make this investment in one of Nigeria’s most exciting and innovative companies. This is an opportunity for Lamar and TechAdvance to collaborate and distribute its expansive suite of digital solutions to emerging markets in Africa and the Middle East.”
A Glance At TechAdvance
TechAdvance is a payment application development company founded in 2009 with a strategic focus in developing and deploying niche payment companies to serve the needs of large public and private sector organizations in Nigeria. It oversees various niche subsidiaries including GPay Africa, PayElectricityBills, Advance Bancorp Digital Microfinance Bank, and others.
TechAdvance runs a network of subsidiaries, each of which focuses on different verticals in emerging markets including utility bill payments, digital financial services, and transportation software. Earlier this year, the company was highlighted as one of the top companies to Inspire Africa in the London Stock Exchange Group’s Report for 2019.
TechAdvance, through its subsidiaries, recently acquired a microfinance bank and obtained approval in principle for a Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) license from the Central Bank of Nigeria. The company also recently received approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain to operate in the country, signaling its intentions to grow beyond Nigeria and Africa.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
As Central and Eastern Europe become increasingly popular for South Africa’s property sector due to subdued growth potential and earnings locally, should these funds not be investing closer to home?
This is the view of Kfir Rusin, the host of the most significant annual gathering of capital investors in African real estate, the 10th annual Africa Property Investment (API) Summit taking place on October 2 & 3 in Johannesburg, whose stakeholders have been more active in the first half 2019 than in the previous 24 months.
“In the first two quarters of 2019, we’ve tracked ten significant transactions in excess of more than a half a billion dollars across multiple jurisdictions and sectors by API Summit stakeholders,” says Rusin.
The growth and opportunity displayed by a diverse spread of International funds, DFIs, Banks, PE firms, institutional investors and others is evidence that despite apparent indifference to African opportunities in SA boardrooms, the continent’s real estate sector has evolved, and become increasingly more liquid and provides value in key nodes and sectors.
Some of the most high-profile deals include well known listed funds and global investors including Growthpoint Investec African Properties Investment Fund (GIAPF); Grit Real Estate Income Group; WeWork, Centum Real Estate, Nedbank; Standard Bank, the IFC and the UK’s CDC.
For investors and developers looking for data and partners experienced in African development or looking to sell prime assets, these are the men and women responsible for structuring and executing these mega deals who will be at this year’s conference, confirmed Rusin. These include GIAPF’s Managing Director Thomas Reilly; Grit’s CEO Bronwyn Corbett; multiple senior investment officers from the IFC; Standard Bank’s Head of Africa real estate, Niyi Adeleye, the CDC’s Illaria Benucci, Centum’s RE MD Samuel Kariuki and many more in attendance.
“The market has moved forward in the past six months, and we’re thrilled that so many major dealmakers will be at the API Summit to transact and share their experiences with our delegates,” he says.
These high-value transactions, while not a repudiation of the South African listed sector’s muted view of the African opportunity, do provide a compelling narrative that the continent’s property markets are investable, but require nuance and insights. It’s not simply a copy and pastes what’s worked here (SA) will work elsewhere says, Rusin.
According to noted real estate analyst Craig Smith of Anchor Stockbrokers, Africa’s top markets are “definitely a more attractive entry point than 18-24 months ago” but cautions that investors still need to exercise a “higher level of diligence” when investing.
And while deal many South African funds continue to look at Central and Eastern Europe for scale (sizeable transactions) and positive funding spreads, says Smith, the transaction spread by API Summit’s investors point to a market that is expanding, which is in line with his view that the “the opportunity set over the long term is immense.”
An analysis which may explain, the increased diversity and complexity in these deals, says Rusin. “We’re witnessing sophisticated deal structuring in Affordable Housing; Hospitality; Logistics; Office spaces and Mixed-use, across countries and regions.”
TOP TEN AFRICAN REAL ESTATE DEALS IN 2019
Growthpoint Investec African Property Fund to acquire malls in Ghana & Zambia Deal Size: Undisclosed
Centum RE & Nedbank ±$75M Debt Deal for their Two Rivers development project Deal Size: $75M
IFC invests in Hilton in Lusaka Protea Hotel (Zambia) Deal Size: $9M
African Logistics Properties (ALP) Signs Debt restructuring deal with Standard Bank Deal Size: $26.5M
Shelter Afrique in Affordable Housing Deal with Habitat International Deal Size: $100M
Grit buys Senegal Club Med Deal Size: $12.5M with development plans of $28.8M
CDC commits to mezzanine debt investment in Teyliom Hospitality Deal Size: $30.7M
WeWork opens its first of many African Office locations in Johannesburg Deal Size: Undisclosed
Actis & Shapoorji launch affordable housing Joint Venture in Kenya Deal Size: $120M
Westpark & Siemens to build sustainable industrial Park Deal Size: Undisclosed
Regarded among local and international decision-makers as Africa’s Property gathering, the API Summit is recognized as a platform for investing but is also vital in developing deeper layers of transparency for investors looking to meet and understand the continent’s divergent and complex markets to avoid previous mistakes committed by SA developers.
As Smith comments, “Africa’s markets are still relatively opaque, and it is vital that these markets continue with their efforts to improve transparency.” Adding that, “The experience of GIAPF is crucial in my view as this will provide evidence of performance to the SA market.”
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Looking for an entrepreneur with the Midas Touch for startups? Cameron Chell, the CEO of his newest startup ICOx Innovations, which is one of only a small handful of companies that have the ability to address the demand for both branded currency and blockchain platform integrations, can fit into that description.
Son of a former rancher dad, who was also the local butcher, and a mom who was the local florist in a very, very small Canadian town of Fort Macleod, southern Alberta, Canada, Cameron Chell told Alejandro Cramades that he had not known anything apart from entrepreneurship all his life.
‘‘I’ve just never known anything else,’’ he said. ‘‘Both my parents were entrepreneurs, and back in those days, they didn’t call them entrepreneurs. They were small business owners. They worked seven days a week. We went to church on Sundays, but they still worked. All three of those industries or those businesses, you had to work every day. I just don’t know anything else. So, I feel very blessed and lucky to have been brought up that way.’’
So Many Startups In His Portfolio
Cameron Chell said he had built and exited eight to nine startups.
‘‘You know,’’ he said. ‘‘I haven’t actually kept track, but it would be probably in the range of somewhere between eight and nine. And it depends on what you call an exit too. If you call them partial exits or exits whereby they’ve gone public and were part of the team, and have been bought two or three times before it’s gone public, I would say a dozen at least. But in terms of just pure, pure like, “We built it once and sold it to one buyer then it would be six, I believe if I’m not mistaken.’’
Cameron built his first tech company, FutureLink. In terms of what FutureLink did, its first version would be called a cloud computing application.
FutureLink went on to work with a number of companies from Oracle and Sun, to Microsoft, IBM, and Compaq. It achieved around a $3.2 billion dollar market cap, back when a billion dollars was worth its bargain.
‘‘FutureLink, I would love to say, was purely my idea,’’ he said. ‘‘It was actually my brother-in-law who came up with the notion of being able to run apps in server farms and have the app be accessed via the internet. This brand new thing called the internet. This is back in ’94, ’95 when we were starting to talk about it. In ’96 when we launched it.’’
Cameron Chell said they were basically trying to enhance both the upgrade experience for users on FutureLink so that people wouldn’t have to go into the computer land or the computer store at that time and buy 3 1/2″ decks and load them into a computer.
‘‘Well, why do you even have to do all that?’’ He said. ‘‘Why aren’t you just accessing the software that sits on the server somewhere as well, as mobile computing was really starting to make its mark? Like, why do I need to carry a laptop? Why don’t we login via what we were calling it at that time a thin client? We were working with a number of companies, everywhere from Oracle and Sun, and Microsoft, and IBM, and Compact because there was this computer utility thin client kind of revolution that was coming. We actually dubbed the industry application service provider industry.’’
At the same time, Chell was also running similar companies, such as ASP Industry Consortium, and was heavily committed to engineering. This could be so dizzying considering that he was trying to run successful companies and not just companies for companies’ sake. Chell said he was usually highly effective if he had a couple of things going on at the same time
‘‘We launched the ASP Industry Consortium, and that was really a self-serving mechanism to try to get adoption in the industry, but also to try to bring some standards to the space,’’ he said. ‘‘We had positioned FutureLink as one of the founding companies, and I was lucky enough to take on the vice chairman role there and really became the promoter of that. Again, We also started a company called Engyro which went through a name change. Eventually, that company was sold off to Microsoft separately. I think in true serial founder fashion, I tend to work better if I’ve got a couple of things going on at the same time.’’
However, his multitasking turned out to be successful because according to him, he was very lucky to work with very accomplished teams.
‘‘They let me lead some of the strategic direction, and then they handle a bunch of the coding, the product design. I like to be involved on the architect side of things. But once we get a layer deeper, I’m either out of time or out of skill,’’ he said.
Chell said for each of these initiatives or startups he had co-founders, but he was careful about the roles they occupied in his startups.
‘‘In every single case, I’ve had co-founders,’’ he said. ‘‘I would say in the early days, much to my own character defect, I would stand out in the front, and I would say, “I was the founder, and the reality is I wasn’t.” I wasn’t the only founder. I think I was a really an important part at times to make a number of these organizations work, but not everything has worked by any stretch of the imagination. There has always been, not just two co-founders, but really a co-founding team when we really get honest about that. The co-founders I choose tend to be either technical or operational. Previous to this, they were much more finance co-founders. My role tends to have skewed over the years to a much more finance role and a strategic direction role.
So, the co-founders that I mix with tend to be more technical, more marketing and a bit more operational.
The Outcome of Chell’s First Set of Startups
Although Chell also built Engyro in the early days, it ended up pivoting to a billing payment system in particular for the Dotnet World.
‘‘It went through a couple of iterations to get to that point, but that’s where it ended up,’’ he said. ‘‘It was two management teams after us. We were still involved strategically, but it was two management teams after our initial initiative that eventually got that sold off to Microsoft. I don’t recall the amount. It wasn’t a huge exit. I think it was probably an 18-million-dollar total sale. We weren’t large shareholders at that time.
‘‘FutureLink was very successful and quite fortunate for us,’’he said. ‘‘It ended up having about a 3.2-billion-dollar market cap. This is back when a billion dollars was not what a billion dollars is today. It seems like there are a lot of companies with a billion-dollar market evaluations. Not to take anything away from any of them, but it was a really big deal for us. So, we were a company that had Fortune 500 customers. Our customers were people like Microsoft, Great Plains, and Citrix.’’
Chell said all of these were happening at great revenue base.
‘‘Then there was this other thing happening that we were relatively kind of almost ignorant to which was called the Dotcom,’’ he said. ‘‘We caught a hold of it, and we just ended up being a startup that had some fundamentals behind it and with beneficiaries of a great market. We were building something that we were really passionate about.’’
What Happened to FutureLink, Cameron Chell’s First Company
To get the picture clearer, Chell said he hired a new chairman for FutureLink at the insistence of the financiers of the company.
‘‘He came out of the Telco industry,’’ Chell said. ‘‘He came in, and unbeknownst to me, when he took on the chairman role, he actually started acting like a proper chairman. I was quite insulted by that. He obviously didn’t understand who I was or how important I was as a 20-some-year-old founder and CEO of this company.’’
At that point, events took a new twist.
‘‘What ensued was me getting fired for being an arrogant little ****. It was absolutely one of the best things that could have happened to me, but I was still too stubborn to recognize what a great lesson and opportunity it was. I took my arrogance and channeled it completely inappropriately; sued the company, and started a competing company, and did all the absolute junior mistakes that one would expect from a complete *** ****, which is what I was at the time. The other thing that was not of benefit, though I thought it was great at the time, was because I was fired, a bunch of my stock nested; a bunch of my stock didn’t nest; some of it did, and I was liquid. I was liquid before the crash.’’
Chell said events were not entirely bad after that ordeal.
‘‘So, I was able to garner a little cash, not as much as one would think, but I was able to get a decent little nest egg out of it which gave me some firepower to start a bunch more companies and create more problems for myself ultimately,’’ he said. ‘‘But if it wasn’t for that, I’m sure I would have never sold the share and rode the thing right into the ground. So, ultimately, the company did fail in the Dotcom boom, though I can’t take credit for that. I’m not saying it would have succeeded if I had stayed at the helm, but it was a high-flying Dotcom. All that being said, I do want to point out that this was a company that had approximately, if I’m not mistaken, about 80 million dollars in revenue.’’
Here Is Why Chell Could Manage All of These Startups At A Time
Cameron Chell said he was probably all successful because of the lean startup approach he had adopted at his startups.
‘‘We were, without knowing it, very lean-centric,’’ he said. ‘‘And of course, it wasn’t called lean then. It was basically called survival back then, and it wasn’t really an accepted practice in terms of how you built startups. The accepted practice of the day was raise a bunch of money, build a whole bunch of infrastructure, and hope customers show up. We were never huge, huge capital raisers. We were builders first, which I think is often quite characteristic of founders.’’
Chell said his startups would usually end up getting a customer first, and then build the product around their requirement.
‘‘That’s just how we’ve built things always,’’ he said. ‘‘As Eric Ries and that whole lean startup moment really came in, it was really exciting and familiar to see. We didn’t even recognize that that’s what we were doing. So, we’d become pretty strong proponents of what that is and how that works. It was interesting to see somebody from outside our organization teaching us what we were already doing.’’
‘‘I realized that I wasn’t in control of things’’
For Cameron Chell, the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, changed the way he previously viewed life entirely.
‘‘I went on and kept building a bunch more companies. Some were moderately successful. Some were complete disasters,’’ he said. ‘‘But in 2001, I was at the base of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and, my life, whether I knew it or not at the time, was headed for a major catastrophe because I was just running completely out of control, and just totally self-centered. By the end of the day on 9/11, I was in complete disarray wondering why I was alive, and other people weren’t. It was probably the first chunk of my self-centeredness being at least somewhat corrected. I realized that I wasn’t in control of things.’’
Chell’s life took a new downward turn afterward. He found himself suddenly homeless.
‘‘So, all this great value and brilliance that I thought I was creating, I really started to question it,’’ he said. ‘‘Within a very short time, I was drinking heavily, and within a very short time, I was abusing drugs. Within about two years, I was completely bankrupt and desolate. Within three years, I was living on the street, and I spent the next seven years after that working to get clean and spent a lot of time in the street, and rehabs, and such to get my life back on track, which by the grace of God and a lot of great people, I’ve now been clean for over 10 years.’’
Chell was literally watching his life slip out of his hands. At a time, he would make up his mind to get back on track, but that would not hold.
‘‘I wish that I could tell you that moment,’’ he said. ‘‘That moment happened two dozen times for me, where I said, “This is it. I’m done. I’m going to get better. I’m going to fix it.” Even two dozen times is a joke. I’d wake up every morning or be awake for three days straight, and every 10 minutes I’d be like, “Okay. That’s it. I’m done. I’m done.” An hour later I’m off running again, just doing whatever I could to get my fix. So, I would love to say it was willpower and I decided I was going to do it, and there was this great burning bush or something, and it wasn’t. What happened was a lucky situation. It didn’t seem lucky at the time where I was in a lot of danger. I was being pursued by a gang. I lived on the street, and I was getting beat up by them.’’
Chell said he was in the streets for a consistent four years that was on and off.
‘‘Like in and out,’’ he said. ‘‘Actually, my total round was about a decade, just a little bit over a decade, about 12 years from when I really slipped deeply until I finally got myself cleaned. I didn’t get myself cleaned up, but I was finally able to get cleaned up, which is quite a short timeframe for somebody that goes really deep and lives on the street because most people don’t come back from the street. But there were four years in there where I was just completely gone, un-findable.’’
Long story short, Chell had to get through a few days without DOC, the drug of his choice.
‘‘I ended up getting through 10 days without it while getting away from this gang,’’ he said. ‘‘ I just didn’t really have a choice. I hit rock bottom. That’s the bottom line. I didn’t have a choice to use it again at that time because I decided I did want to live. I didn’t know that I wanted to live, but I did want to live. At the end of 10 days clean, something just started to click. I had had 10 days clean before, but not having gone through what I had gone through in the previous 10 days. I knew that if I ever touched anything again, that I wouldn’t come back and I’d be done. I could just see so many people that were really sincerely and authentically trying to help me, and I was just disrespecting them at every moment.’’
However, Chell said since recovery, there were many tempting times over the weeks and the months and years ensuing where if it just weren’t for some pure luck he would have relapsed to his former position.
‘‘Founders can be incredibly impulsive, compulsive, and generally always determined people,’’ he said. ‘‘So, when there’s something that has worked before to solve a problem, like using a drug or something, it’s tough to get away from that. I see a lot of founders. I get to coach and mentor some of them, and I see the intensity that they approach things with. You generally have to be on some level incredibly intense to be able to do something like this or to take the risks or be willing to subject yourself to the things that you go through. It puts you in a lot of risky situations, but also, you’re generally kind of predetermined to be a certain type of individual that could be subject to falling into these traps. I guess my point is, there was no burning bush, and it was a lot of luck and a lot of great people that helped me get through that.’’
Cameron Chell said at that point when he was in the street, he had given up on himself.
‘‘I had not only given up on myself, I had actually believed that everybody, the entire world, my family, everybody was better off with me,’’ he said. ‘‘Like you justify it this way, that it was better off with me being on the street because I was so worthless. Homelessness itself is its own form of drug, and it is its own form of mental illness that draws you into it where you don’t want to leave. You don’t want to leave. In fact, I would say today when I’m hungry or lonely or tired or angry, just haven’t been looking after myself, the odd crazy thought of being homeless would slip into my head and be more attractive than the odd crazy thought of using drugs. It’s a very odd mindset that slips into that, but worthlessness is at the forefront in it.’’
A Ton of Lessons From That Experience
Chell said he learned many lessons from that experience.
‘‘There are so many great lessons that I’ve been given, but the one that I hang onto the most every day now is that I stay very, very present,’’ he said. ‘‘So, I only do the next thing in front of me. It’s almost counter-intuitive because we’re taught to be visionaries, we’re taught to be what’s the next big thing. We have to see around corners and anticipate the next move. If you’re not a great Chess player, you’re not a great CEO, and if you’re not all those things. But, you know, the reality is if you just don’t get done the next most important thing, none of it matters.’’
Chell said ninety percent, in his opinion, of founders today who don’t succeed generally do it not because they haven’t got a great idea.
‘‘There are amazing, great ideas out there,’’ he said. ‘‘I sit in Angel Forums and I listen to pitches, and the ideas and the thinking is incredible. But 99% of the time, the reason that you, whether it’s recognized or not, the reason that people don’t invest in those founders is because they don’t believe they can execute the next step. It’s really all just about what is the next most important thing to do.’’
Chell goes on further to say that when he gets up in the morning, his mind is already racing.
‘‘If the first thing I don’t do is meditate…I worry about the next 15 minutes getting to my workout, getting back on time, getting my kids’ breakfast ready. If I don’t take that level of pragmatic approach as a founder, I’m also not going to run my business well. So, those are the things that I’ve seen investors really focus on whether they recognize it or not. I’ve also found that the most successful founders have a high level of anxiety. One of the greatest ways for them to elevate that anxiety is to know that everything will be okay if you just get the next thing done.’’
Now 42 years old, and things are starting to turnaround, Chell is now a father and in a loving relationship. But he has also been diagnosed with lymphoma cancer.
‘‘It’s just another one of those great lessons where you realize you’re not in control. So, I didn’t recognize it, but now I had some clean time, I had somebody to love me, I had a family that was growing, and I thought, “Hey, I’ve done everything right. I deserve to be in this spot that I was in because I’ve done all the hard work,” he said. ‘‘Again, entitlement, a character defect of mine, just slapped me right in the face and said, “You’re not in control.” I was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. Part of my first reaction was like, “What! I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. I’ve done everything right. Why would this happen?” So, it really, again, it was a blessing because it really took the need for me to let go of ego and start to understand, where is my self-centeredness in this, and understanding this isn’t all about me. I’m not a victim here.’’
‘‘And what are the most important things that I need to take care of in terms of my family, and the people that I was working with, and the investors that had put money into projects that I was building? And here I was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer.
‘‘When I got focused on those things rather than, oh, my gosh. What about me? Why am I not getting what “I deserve?” Things turned around. I was very, very lucky that physically and health-wise, I was able to get on the other side of it and I’ve been clean of that now for eight years, or lymphoma cancer-free for eight years. I promise you: I totally believe that if I would have stayed in a state of victimhood or entitlement, I don’t know if I would have beaten it.’’
It was a grace that I’m here, but it sure changed that whole experience. But even if I hadn’t (because I was able to get to a spot of not having that entitlement) even if I hadn’t been able to beat it, I believe that both my family and my co-workers and our investors would have been fine because of the steps we would have taken to help ensure that everything was fine. Again, it was just about the next thing. We won’t worry about 20 years down the road. We’re just worrying about what’s the next most important thing to get done.
Back To Work
Cameron Chell had since moved on. He has spent much of his time building series of other startups.
‘‘Again, I didn’t really know much else, so I had already launched a couple of companies,’’ he said. ‘‘The first one was a company called UrtheCast. Our idea was to build a competitor to Google Earth by putting live video cameras in space. In fact, we were going to put them on the International Space Station.So, we were successful in doing this. We raised a very small amount of capital to start. We started proving up the idea. We got a couple of customers onboard that liked the idea, and they funded some of the product development, and then eventually, we were able to raise bigger and bigger capital and bring on a more and more senior management team. Today, those cameras are on the International Space Station, and they provide live video feeds of earth. The primary customers are B2B, not B2C as we had originally contemplated.
To date, at least to my knowledge, they are still the only live video from space. All other video in space is all based on still pictures being taken. I mean, they’re fast still pictures, but none-the-less, it’s not video. Since then, I think we’ve got 22 companies in our portfolio to date.
UrtheCast Has Since Gone Public And Done Its IPO
Chell said UrtheCast has since gone public and has secured a series of funding for the business.
‘‘The total capital was 280 million dollars at the point that we were no longer part of the active management of the business,’’ he said. ‘‘They’ve raised capital since. Even 280 million dollars for a space company is a ridiculously small amount of money. We were building the cameras for literally 5 million dollars a piece. They were literally Canon SLR chips that were the sensors being used. Now, the housings were very expensive to pack that equipment, but it was all part of this new initiative called Small Space at the time which was all about being able to use commercially-available products in the space industry. We were also beneficiaries of space being pretty hot at the time with the XPRIZE going forward and such. Yeah, we just grabbed onto what we could and built what we did.’’
UrtheCast Is The First Portfolio Company of Business Instincts Group Formed By Chell
Business Instincts Group is a venture creation lab.
‘‘We come up with ideas internally,’’ Chell said. ‘‘We bring ideas in-house and incubate them. They are generally very early stage either ideas or businesses that we feel have a significant opportunity to scale. What we have is a proprietary process called The Rip Kit which is responsibilities in perspective, which is a system by which companies can build startups from idea right through commercialization.’’
Chell said the primary idea behind it is that rather than setting KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, what it is designed to do is to set responsibilities and perspective which basically involve the entire team setting the most important objectives on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. The team then check in on those objectives on a weekly basis.
‘‘There’s a software system that helps drive the whole process,’’ Chell noted. ‘‘It’s one level above project management. But what it does do is it really ensures that everybody is on the same strategic page, and as such, it allows them or empowers them to make decisions because everybody knows they’re on the same page.
The other great advantage of the system and the software is that it provides full transparency and a dashboard to the investors. So, as we go out and we raise capital for our projects or we have our senior management teams raising capital for our projects. One of the things that they can show to investors is everything that is happening on a weekly basis. They can see exactly what the strategic initiatives are, who is in charge of them. Are they behind, on track, ahead, and by what percentage?
Chell said Business Instincts Group has crucially been driven by Big Thinking Process.
‘‘Big Thinking is, it’s anchored in the first question we call: What if?’’ He said. ‘‘So, imagine if Google Earth was live. Like, just what if it was? We know all the reasons that it can’t be, and it’s impossible. But, if it could, what would it look like if you could? Then we go through that question, and we end up coming up with the really cool product. This is how we started UrtheCast.
We come up with a really cool product of what it would be like to have a Google Earth live rather than three-year-old satellite data. Then we talk, well, we know it’s impossible to build this, but what if we could build it? What would that look like? After you go through like 7 to 15 what-ifs on a project, you end up getting it boiled down to natural potential or possibility to build a project that was thought impossible, literally five or six hours previous to that.
That’s our Big Thinking Process. So, we love big ideas, and we love all that kind of stuff, but we really like to anchor it in a pragmatic approach to like.’’
Cameron Chell’s success has also been with Slyce, a visual search engine startup.
‘‘So, obviously, search is a massive industry and a cornerstone on so many commercial aspects of what happens on the internet and e-commerce in general,’’ he said. ‘‘There was a lot of focus being put on audio search, so we see things like Siri, and Alexa, and so forth. Let’s just be a bit counterintuitive here and go down the path of visual search. We had done quite a bit of stuff in visual search before, not specifically for what Slyce was going to try to accomplish, but in particular we had done some machine-vision work way back in the 90s, and then at UrtheCast we had recognized the power of some visual recognition when identifying objects on earth using cameras from the space station.
So, the general idea was why don’t you — and this isn’t a novel idea. Lots of people have had it. Why can’t you just take a picture of something? Let’s say it’s an office chair, and you are in the Office Depot or Staples app, and you take a picture of that, and boom, it finds it in their inventory. You can buy it instantly. So, like no click at buying. Rather than one-click purchasing which Amazon built an empire on, what if you could do it on no-click buying. So, we envision that up in the little search bar there would be a keyboard. There would be a microphone, and there would be a camera. That’s what we wanted to create.’’
Cameron Chell has also gone ahead to launch other successful businesses such as ICOxinnovations.com, a publicly-traded company that creates blockchain economies and corporate currencies in partnership with established brands
Advice for Business Owners Starting Out
‘‘ I’ll tell you what I tell my son,’’ he said. ‘‘I get up every morning and meditate, and I just focus on one think big, but act small. Act small in terms of what you need to do next, and act small in terms of where your ego needs to be. That’s really four things I just told you there. You do those and everything, I believe, will work out right. Don’t get too far in front of yourself. Think big, but just learn how to act small, and I guess that’s the advice. Think big, act small. Some of those small acts are just doing what’s next and having a little meditation sometime throughout the day.’’
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
Europe’s foremost African polo event graced London for the second time today at the prestigious Ham Polo Club, hosting a glamorous crowd of polo aficionados and those celebrating the style and joie de vivre of African culture.
A sea of well-heeled guests, mostly head to toe in African inspired finery, proudly strutted one of the oldest polo clubs in the United Kingdom, to the soundtrack of Afrobeats and Fela Kuti, as Lux Afrique firmly marked its territory as the go-to annual African polo day.
Being so much more than a sporting event, but a celebration of African refinement and sense of occasion, the Lux Afrique Polo Day offered a myriad of attractions, all adding to the glamour and fun of the day. Fine dining of exquisite African cuisine was provided to guests courtesy of Waakye Leaf. The event also featured a shopping lounge in which deluxe brands, Backes & Strauss, Montegrappa, and Yoko London, showcased their finest products.
The Polo itself was a thrilling affair with two opposing teams with similar handicaps battling it out in front of a captivated crowd, who paused their mingling and revelry to enjoy the spectacle.
The match was opened by Lux Afrique founder Alexander Amosu alongside the Director of The Sofa and Chair Company.
Team Africa was narrowly defeated by Team Rudo – aka The Rest of the World – 4/3. The honor of ‘Most Valued Player’ was awarded to British born Louise Brown, who plays polo both in the UK and Argentina, while the title of ‘Best Playing Pony’ was awarded to Illuminado.
After the match closing, and the prize-giving – which of course involved the traditional spraying of champagne – the crowd voted on the pick for ‘Best Dressed’ at the event. While the competition was stiff, given the abundance of fashionably dressed attendees, a ‘best-dressed man’ and a ‘best-dressed woman’ was selected.
With the match game and set, the guests proceeded to enjoy themselves in true African spirit, as they danced the rest of the afternoon away to the live band, fronted by Nigerian legend Dele Sosimi.
The Lux Afrique Polo Day was fortunate to have exceptional partners, that included Remy Martin, Corinthia London, Artisan du Chocolat, FIJI Water, and the esteemed Val de Vie Events. Media Partners also included BET, Channels TV, Beat FM, Polo Lifestyle and Magazine and Elite Living Africa, and The Outside Organisation.
Lux Afrique used the occasion to shine a spotlight on a worthy charitable cause – Malaika – an initiative to bring education, water, and health to the poorest communities in the Congo. In 2011 Malaika opened a school in the DRC, which today provides an education to over 300 girls. The charity was set up by Congolese model and humanitarian Noëlla Coursaris Musunka who seeks to help communities “escape gender inequality, poverty, and lack of education that currently restricts their choices”. Attendees were encouraged to donate generously to Malaika on the day, and thereafter
Lux Afrique is a lifestyle and concierge company catering to UHNW across Africa, as well as a luxury multimedia platform for marketing and promoting luxury brands, targeting an audience on the African continent. It introduces luxury-focused brands to the high net- worth consumer markets growing throughout Africa, through a number of means, including high profile events, such as the Lux Afrique Annual Polo Day.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Five African startups have each raised US$25,000 in funding from The Baobab Network’s accelerator, which provides a platform for scaling and securing further investment.
A Look At The Funded Startups
The funded startups include Ethiopian ed-tech startup Beblocky, Zimbabwean AI-based health platform Dr. Cadx, Kenyan insurtech startup Kakbima, Nigerian payments platform Gladepay, and Ghanaian digital bank Pennysmart.
Each startup has secured US$25,000 in funding in return for a 10 percent equity stake, as well as access to a tailor-made accelerator programme.
The Baobab Network sends its ventures team to each company’s home city for a weeklong sprint prior to unlocking the funds, and then assigns a venture partner for a period of 24 months to help each startup speed its growth and become market and investor-ready.
Founders of those startups will also gain access to an investor network of over 100 venture capital and impact funds, while a network of global partners is on hand to offer their assistance and explore early commercial partnerships, such as Amazon Web Services, Accenture and Standard Chartered Ventures. Companies will be helped through a seed round within 12 months.
The Baobab Network focuses on early-stage startups using tech to solve big market problems.
“We are usually the first money into a business, specialising in pre-seed companies that have shown our team potential for huge scale,” said Baobab co-founder Tom Fairburn.
Fairburn said the accelerator, which accepts startups on a rolling basis, had received over 600 applicants from startups in more than 25 African countries so far this year.
“We hope to do three more deals this year, and support a further 20 companies in 2020,” he said. “The big vision is to have 100 companies in our portfolio by 2023.’’
Funding comes from a mixture of revenue from its data business Baobab Insights and equity funding the company has received over the last three years, which totals over US$1.2 million.
Although Baobab does not prefer certain startups over others, the company’s focus traditionally has been on fast-growing sectors such as e-health, ed-tech, and fintech.
Fairburn said The Baobab Network works exclusively with local founders who are building businesses in markets where they are experts.
“We are currently fundraising to further increase our support for tech entrepreneurs in Africa,” Fairburn said.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
