Mission and Values
Our mission is to be part of Africa’s Renaissance by imagining, proving and scaling transformative businesses that become leaders in their fields.
Our mission
We are driven by two core principles: social impact and profitability. We transform lives by creating flourishing communities through the investments we make, at scale. We do this sustainably, and profitably, by creating companies that are leaders in their fields.
Our Mantra
01
Imagine
To gather an intuition of good ideas we put down strong roots in a country, and in sectors. Only by understanding the particular challenges and opportunities in a given place or a given sector can you expect to generate sustainable progress or growth, and this starts with a profound understanding generated by living in a place, not by flying in and out for a few days at a time.
Our approach, then, is to build on geography- and sector-specific understanding to truly understand what works in a place, and why, and imagine the possibilities.
02
Prove
Once we have imagined an intervention or a company in a sector, we rigorously qualify it through a diligence process we have developed over fourteen years operating in this environment. We craft assumptions and test them locally at low cost. Once assumptions are tested, we incorporate a new company and bring scale to operations through investment.
03
Scale
Whilst we are purists on some things, we are pragmatists on structure and approaches. For example, when we have identified or imagined the approach we wish to take in a particular sector, we will access that approach in the most logical way. This has meant, in the past, that we have bought companies rather than founded them. We will do whatever it takes to make our holdings flourish and will only target a sector and an investment on the basis we can become top 3 players in the sector in the country within five years.
Our offices
