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From Seed to Harvest: Lessons from impact investing
What can we learn from the first impact investment fund focused on East African agribusinesses?
It is with great pride that we look back at how AAC has changed the investment landscape for agribusinesses in East Africa and, especially, brought about change for rural communities.
In 2006, Gatsby and partners set-up African Agricultural Capital (AAC) – a first-of-its-kind $9M fund to invest in agribusinesses that could have significant impact on smallholder farmers' livelihoods across East Africa.
Today, Gatsby, Pearl Capital Partners and Onward Resources International are delighted to launch a report that explores the fund's overall performance and lessons learned on SME financing and fund structure. It also showcases select portfolio companies and traces the impact of investments throughout the ecosystems the companies operate in.
Click here to download the report
Delivering this report provided us a unique opportunity to see first-hand, the depth and broader impact that AAC has brought about in the communities where the businesses are located. We saw how investee companies catalysed the emergence of skilled employees, many of them young men and women. Without these investments, many of the hardworking people in these communities would not have had the chance for dignified work.
AAC was a pioneer fund designed to work in an innovative way – to show such investments could be viable and to contribute to the development of this field. It has helped inform Gatsby’s thinking on how to transform agriculture in East Africa and we hope the learning is useful for others.