Investment Focus

Scaling the best ideas into market leaders.

Investment Focus

Scalable solutions for real-world problems.

Our investment focus:

  • High growth, strong return business models

  • Creating high impact at scale

  • Stand-out, mission-driven, black / female-led or diverse founder teams - helping to correct the existing funding bias

We also invest in:

  • Transformative business models in key industries, driven by teams that don’t (yet) include under-represented founders

  • Stand-out black and female entrepreneurs with highly scalable business models that aren’t necessarily “transformative” – but do create inspiring success examples

We don't invest in:

  • “Social only” enterprises: impact, but insufficiently strong growth / return prospects

  • “Profit only” business models: non-diverse teams with strong growth business models without high impact

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We invest in startups that use technology and innovation to solve real problems at scale. Our focus is on high-growth businesses that deliver returns and meaningful impact.
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Sectors and themes

We’re sector-agnostic by design; right now our investing focuses on these real-economy themes:
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Agri / Food Tech

The global food value chain needs to be innovated to produce sustainable food for the masses. Small, emerging economy farmers need to access global markets.
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Health Tech

Innovative (tech-enabled) models can make quality healthcare available to (rural) masses.
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Education Tech

Education is the mother of all solutions; tech-enabled models can address the budget / teacher deficit.
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Platforms & enablers

Platforms and business models creating more efficient markets or matching Africa’s booming population to international demand.
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Supply Chains / Logistics

The movement of goods must be reliable and traceable. Software-led solutions B2B marketplaces, procurement, cold chain and tracking reduce stock-outs, waste and cost from first mile to last.
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Energy / Industrial Efficiency

Affordable, reliable energy and smarter assets for growth. Tech-enabled models—distributed energy, metering and optimisation—improve uptime and cut opex for households and businesses.
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Climate / Nature

Adaptation and nature-positive solutions that strengthen resilience and decarbonise value chains. Practical tools for measurement, risk and compliance aligned to leading standards.
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High returns - high impact

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High growth, high return

  • Highly scalable models with large addressable markets; potential to become local market leader & scale internationally
  • At least 30% IRR per investment case

High impact

  • Disruptive models and breakthrough innovations creating economic opportunity and participation for masses
  • Measurable impact on SDG’s

Diverse entrepreneurial teams

  • Investing in diverse teams as they perform better
  • Addressing the existing funding disparity affecting black and female entrepreneurs
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Fund structures

Fund 1

Fund closed
Invested in 11 companies

Fund 2

Fund closed
Invested in 10 companies

Holdco

HoldCo structure is an investment company with shareholders and a price per share. Focused on high performance of Fund I and II, with some capital dedicated to new investments.
See Portfolio
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Testimonials

Hear from the founders and our investors we back
"The E4E team has played a profound role in helping to guide our decision making. As a result of their entrepreneurial nature they are able to provide succinct and actionable advice. We are excited for the E4E team to play a bigger role in our business, and trust the team’s ability to add value and make pragmatic decisions."
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Matt Elan-Smith Co-founder / CEO Pineapple
"You think like entrepreneurs. Your ethos, your value for me in building a high-value African business, your help in cleaning up our cap table and the ease of working with E4E in capital rounds were the reasons to make E4E the largest investor on our cap table."
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Dave Torr Co-founder / CEO FARO