Africa Eats, a venture capital (VC) firm financing African companies in the agriculture value chain, is set to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in a quest to raise funding from local investors.
The VC fund, which is listed in Mauritius, says it is waiting for the approval of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) before bringing the ETF to market and will comprise the investment vehicle and its portfolio companies.
An ETF is defined as a listed investment product which tracks the performance of a particular index or a basket of shares, bonds, money market instruments or a single commodity. ETFs are traded on an exchange just like an ordinary share, with prices being determined by demand and supply.
The Africa Eats ETF will give investors exposure to the fund and its portfolio companies.
Africa Eats has 24 portfolio companies, three of which are also listed in Mauritius, while its local footprint includes Nyota, a seller of frozen vegetables and cereals.
Other Kenyan-based firms in the portfolio are Chicken Basket—a seller of chicken feed and marketer of chicken, and Boka Eats, which manufactures and sells animal feeds for smallholder farmers.
The VC has favoured an ETF listing over a cross-listing, citing the lack of sizeable foreign listings on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
“The reason we are working on an ETF instead of cross-listing all of the companies is that the NSE only has one foreign company listed (Bank of Kigali),” said Africa Eats Chief Executive and Co-founder Luni Libes.
“The right answer for us after engaging the NSE and other stakeholders is creating a wrapper for Kenya through the ETF. The likely path is to cross-list each operation in the country where it is based, but leave Africa Eats listed in Mauritius.”
The venture capital fund will become NSE’s third exchange-traded fund after the Absa New Gold ETF, a commodity tracking the market price of gold bullion and the Satrix MSCI World Feeder ETF, which tracks the Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index comprising large and mid-cap stocks in 23 developed markets.
Africa Eats has deployed an estimated Sh1.8 billion ($14 million) to take up strategic minority stakes in the 24 portfolio companies, with a further Sh129 million ($1 million) being cash at hand. The portfolio companies achieved Sh7 billion ($55 million) in total revenues in 2025.
Africa Eats does not currently collect dividends from the portfolio companies, allowing them to tap retained earnings to accelerate growth.
The venture fund was initially financed using raises from family offices but incorporated institutional investors after its December 2024 listing.
The fund has two other co-founders who together serve as the employees of Africa Eats, Jumaane Tafawa and Lilian Nshangeki. Mr Libes also serves as the Chairman of the VC, while Mr Tafawa and Ms Nshangeki are board members.
The three take inspiration from American investor and chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, and they expect to maintain their stakes in the growth companies over the long term.
“We are using the public markets to raise money rather than cash out. We are a permanent investor—the Berkshire Hathaway of Africa. We intend to own most of these companies 60 years from now,” added Mr Libes.
“Our target base is fast-growing, profitable food and agriculture companies that are building the supply chains. We are a permanent capital vehicle, we are not a holding company or a conglomerate, and we are not controlling these companies.”
Africa Eats has minority stakes in firms through equity and debt investments and helps scale the companies through a business accelerator before maintaining the shareholding for the long term.
Other Africa Eats portfolio companies are Ghana’s Agromyx, Uganda’s Green Charcoal, Malawi’s Honey Products and Ethiopia’s Obamastove.
