The elea Way - Preview

elea’s FOUNDATION AND OPER ATING MODEL

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Many early stage investors shy away from such an intense due-diligence effort and address the risk of failure by investing smaller, diversified amounts rather than carrying out a thorough analysis, understanding, and assessment. However, as we are looking for intense, multiyear partnerships in our model, shortcutting due diligence is simply not an option. Besides cre- ating support, alignment, and excitement for an investment internally, due diligence is often the first step to building knowledge, respect, and trust with the leadership team of the impact enterprise that could poten- tially become part of our investment portfolio. The due diligence process, thereby, serves as the foundation for effective future collaboration, for it provides great insights about the people and their modus operandi, as well as about the current and intended status of strategies, models, and plans, which is an important due diligence finding in and of itself. The criteria we are looking for at the board level when deciding on an investment recommendation are straightforward. Essentially, three ques- tions need to be satisfactorily answered: 1. Does an investment promise a realistic path to significant social impact and financial sustainability, and is it in line with elea’s pur- pose, vision, and values? 2. Are we confident that we can engage with the leadership team of an investee company in a long-term productive collaboration along mutually agreed principles of partnership? 3. Can elea contribute to impact value creation by leveraging its profes- sional expertise beyond its financial capital investment? So what were some of the key attractions at the time that encouraged us to pick Angaza, Coffee Circle, Dharma Life, and BagoSphere? Angaza, which was initiated by an American entrepreneur with a science back- ground, was our first investment in the digital solutions space. We rec- ognized the massive impact potential of the pay-as-you-go technology, which removed one of the biggest bottlenecks in last-mile distribution initiatives, and we were impressed by the innovative, yet robust, technical solution that Lesley and her brother had developed. An additional factor was that the team seemed open to being challenged on the design of the business model and the strategy to be pursued.