The other highlight of the Investors Circle visit to Nairobi was the visit to the factory where BURN Manufacturing builds its cookstoves. Charcoal cookstoves, as charcoal is the most popular fuel used for cooking by urban and peri-urban Kenya. Factory, as in a fully-modern manufacturing facility, little different from those found in the U.S., Europe, Japan, or China. One large building filled...
Fledge has been importing African entrepreneurs to Seattle for the last two years. This week we finally got to visit a few in their home country, as part of an impact investing trip with Investors Circle. Unsurprisingly, there is no substitute to seeing their businesses first-hand vs. seeing pictures and movies while sitting in downtown Seattle at the Impact Hub. No amount of pictures can...
Yusuf Tura came to Seattle as a lone refugee from Ethiopia at age 16 to escape war and conflict in the country at the time. Today, the Seattle cab driver’s life has been transformed by a decision he made after returning home in 2007. When he got to his home town, he was shocked. All the trees had been killed off and stripped away by pollution from stoves that burn wood and dung. The dirty...
Investors and entrepreneurs in Africa increasingly find each other online. Zambia based startup company Zamgoat recently secured a 20K investment deal from the US based accelerator Fledge, who found them via the online VC4Africa platform. We had a chance to catch up with both the entrepreneur and the investor.
Read the story of entrepreneur Paul Nyambe.
And the story of how Fledge found Zamgoat.
Fledge6, as in the sixth session of Fledge, the conscious company accelerator. 170 applications from 45 countries arrived. We invite just seven to participate. And this seven are incredibly existing. For the first time ever, the invitees include not only no teams from Seattle, but no American teams at all. Seven startups hailing from five different countries: As always, seven impactful...
Watch the Fledge5 “Demo Day” video: Seven inspirational, mission-driven, for-profit companies, aiming to improve the world in seven ways: Making cotton recyclable Making digital billboards social Making China’s buildings greener Bringing affordable, clean-burning cookstoves to every Ethiopian Bringing transparency to government Bringing fresh escargot to America Hoisting Kenya...
BURN Manufacturing has raised $4 million, and with those funds is moving forward on their vision to rid East Africa of the smoke of cook stoves, and in the process, save at least 100 million trees. The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and General Electric have partnered provide this funding. This groundbreaking news was announced on January 31, 2013 by U.S. Secretary of State...