Interview with Doris Odit Acheng of East Africa Private Equity and Venture Capital Association

What are your names?

Doris Odit Acheng

2. Where did you go to school?

Some of my earlier primary school education was in Kenya, and the

remaining part of my upper primary schooling- as well as the entirety of my

high school education, was in Mbarara, Uganda. I completed my Bachelor’s

degree from Mbarara University of Science and Technology and my Master’s

degree from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

3. What did you study?

A Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and an MBA with Finance

specialisation. A disclaimer- I never really practised Information Technology

professionally- immediately moving from the NGO world- where I had worked

throughout my undergraduate university education, first as a part-time

volunteer and then as a full-time employee- into management and

development consulting right after graduating- and working in consulting

full time for about 9 years thereafter.

4. Tell us about what you do?

I will flip this question and speak to the activities of the East African Private

Equity and Venture Capital Association (EAVCA) and its members. I

coordinate the activities of EAVCA in Uganda- having done so since the

establishment of the Uganda Chapter of EAVCA in April 2021. EAVCA is a

membership association representing the interests of private capital

providers across East Africa, with its operational mandate spanning Uganda

alongside Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Our core members, who

are private capital providers, deploy patient capital to enterprises to

facilitate business growth. The capital may be in the form of equity, debt, or a

combination. Members also include actors providing services to private

capital providers- primarily legal advisors, transaction advisors and other

intermediaries. As EAVCA, our aim is to ensure a favourable enabling

environment for deploying said private capital to enterprises. We do this

through advocacy, intelligence, training, and events focused on meeting the

various needs of our members.

5. What are some of the major influences in your past that are determining

what you are doing now?

My first exposure to work was with an NGO in Western Uganda whose core

mandate was to leverage education and skilling to address development

challenges. This grounded me and shaped my understanding of the systemic

development challenges present in Uganda- and how these, if not

intercepted, could lead to cyclical multi-generational poverty. While my first

job opened my eyes to development challenges, my next 7-year stint as a

management consultant in Tanzania immersed me fully in the private sector.

Primarily working with medium and large-scale enterprises, I supported

enterprises needing working capital or long-term debt financing to raise

capital through undertaking comprehensive investment appraisals. I later

moved to Uganda, working for nearly 2 years as a development consultant,

looking at the macro-level and finding answers to the question: “what private

sector-driven investments can facilitate pro-poor growth?”

As I reach the 15-year mark of my diverse career, I see how the dots connect

to make me more effective at speaking to and pursuing the interests of

members of EAVCA in Uganda- particularly as it relates to speaking to the

work of the association’s members- which is the provision of private capitalto

promising enterprises. Looking at it through the lens of private capital

investments, my work as a management consultant gave me an

understanding of the wide financing gap enterprises grapple with- and the

role alternative financing can play in supplementing concessionary debt

financing from development banks or commercial bank debt. My work with an

NGO showed that development challenges could not be addressed through

handouts alone, with more diverse and systemic interventions needed. Later

on, as a development consultant, I gained a deeper understanding of the role

of the private sector in addressing development challenges more

systemically- if only obstacles such as access to enterprise finance could be

addressed.

For these challenges, private equity and venture capital provide a solution for

the “access to finance”gap and other development challenges. Our core

members provide businesses with an alternative financing option while

providing needed hands-on direction in achieving enterprise growth. This is

through investing in promising and high-potential businesses likely to

generate financial, societal and environmental returns, providing long-term

financing over a 3-8-year horizon, and engaging in knowledge transfer to

help businesses streamline operations and achieve profitability through

participation in the boards of the businesses they invest in.

6. Tell us what makes East Africa Private Equity and Venture Capital

Association different and why people should be a part of what you do

there?

I will speak to this less from the perspective of EAVCA- as an association of

private capital providers and more from the perspective of our members who 

provide said capital- and as to why enterprises may be interested in

absorbing this form of capital. As indicated above, private capital providers

invest in businesses for the long-term horizon and further engage in post

investment support to help businesses achieve profitability. This is what

makes this form of financing differ from other forms of traditional financing.

Therefore, entrepreneurs and businesses looking for alternative financing –

with great and scalable business models and good market traction - should

consider this financing avenue.

7. You recently gave a talk at Kampala Impact Day tell us more about what

you shared?

Yes, I did. The presentation was about sustainable financing in the context of

private capital investments. Summarising it, private capital providers

targeting East African enterprises for investment either adopt Environmental,

Social and Governance (ESG) Integration into their investment strategies or

are otherwise Impact-focused funds. Therefore, their strategy is to invest in

companies that can achieve financial, societal and environmental returns.

As such, private capital providers in Uganda have traditionally invested in

inclusive businesses- primarily in the healthcare, financials and agribusiness

sectors or infrastructure- particularly renewable energy. These businesses

generate financial returns and possess scalable business models and

market traction, and are also- through their offering - addressing

development challenges such as poor health outcomes, a large financing

gap, low incomes due to participants in the agricultural sector, or low rural

electrification rates. As technology becomes front and centre and following

growth in mobile phone penetration rates and internet connectivity in

Uganda, there is a growing recognition that Tech Innovations and

Investments in these are likely to create opportunities to create the perfect

balance between financial and societal returns. In the EAVCA deal tracker,

we already see a recent investment shift towards Tech- specifically in

FinTech, AgriTech, InsurTech and E-Mobility.

As the FinTech, AgriTech, InsurTech and E-Mobility sectors in Uganda

specifically- and in Africa- more broadly are nascent and hence mostly

dominated by companies at the start-up phase, traditional private equity

investors, while seeking impact, are yet to shift their focus on the high

potential segment - preferring instead to invest in growth-stage enterprises

with proven business models.

A few traditional private equity providers are forming alliances with venture

capitalists in Africa with more tech industry experience to deploy capital to

start-ups- which is promising for start-ups innovating around Tech. The

EAVCA deal tracker also shows growing interest in Ugandan

FinTechcompanies from global venture capital funds, with notable examples

of companies recently invested in being NUMIDA, Asaak and Tugende. We are

also seeing notable momentum in development finance institutions taking

the first-in-last-out approach to de-risking investment in risky sectors in

emerging markets. The biggest attempt at de-risking investment in Tech

start-ups in Africa has come from the World Bank/ IFC through the recently

launched US$ 225 million Venture Capital Platform.

8. What do you think the gaps are in the Technology and Innovation

Ecosystem of Uganda and how can we fill them? How developed is the

system as it stands for Investors?

We have a vibrant and active incubator and accelerator network in Uganda 

some of whom are members of EAVCA- who are key to creating a vibrant

Technology and Innovation Ecosystem. As to the gaps- strong measures to

protect Intellectual Property rights are needed to foster a culture of

innovation and reward those that dare to innovate. There’s also room to

emulate regional initiatives such as Tanzania’s Silicon Zanzibar Initiative- a

public-private initiative intended to create the infrastructure and enabling

environment to transform Zanzibar into the Silicon Valley of East Africa. Think

of a special economic zone focused on the Tech and Innovation space –

providing relevant working and accommodation facilities, proximal to an

international airport, work visas for tech workers and other relevant

incentives.

Such an initiative can be led by the public sector. From Tech innovators’

perspective, building well-coded apps is good but not good enough to

achieve traction and scale- and thereafter attract investment. The market

will adopt and use apps that address the masses’ day-to-day problems and

create efficiencies where inefficiencies exist. Identifying where these

inefficiencies exist in the wider system in Uganda and across East Africa and

Africa, and working backwards to develop an app as a solution is a good first

step to building a scalable business with the potential to generate financial

returns. Learning approaches such as the “Jobs to be Done Framework”

could help with this.