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·       By December 2023, the group aims to have planted 20,000 trees at the park.

·       The move to rehabilitate the park has so far registered an 80 per cent success rate, visible through the natural regeneration of the site.

·       Old Mutual has so far planted approximately 200,000 trees in the Aberdare Range and other regions in Kenya.

Old Mutual Group and its subsidiary, Faulu Microfinance Bank, have committed to planting 3 million trees within the next decade (by 2033) as part of the company’s broader climate action and sustainability strategy.

This year, the Group intends to plant a minimum of 20,000 trees in the Aberdare National Park and monitor their progress, which will contribute to rehabilitating 60 hectares of the park through a partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service that dates back to 2017.

To date, the Old Mutual has planted over 40,000 seedlings covering about 36ha of the park. The park has a significant role in providing water to the 80% of the Kenyan capital city, including other counties such as Nyeri and Nyandarua and is also a habitat for wildlife.

Speaking during the tree planting exercise at the park, Old Mutual Group EA CEO Arthur Oginga noted that the move to rehabilitate the park has so far registered an 80 per cent success rate, visible through the natural regeneration of the site.

“As a responsible business, we are committed to promoting environmental sustainability and conservation efforts in Kenya. Our partnership with Kenya Wildlife Services to rehabilitate Aberdare National Park is a demonstration of our dedication to creating a better world for future generations. Through this tree planting exercise, we hope to restore the park’s ecosystem and preserve its biodiversity, making it a vibrant natural habitat for wildlife and a source of livelihood for surrounding communities.” said Mr. Oginga

Old Mutuals’ targets are guided by the Group’s Climate Change Action Strategy which considers the social and economic implications of initiatives taken, the urgency articulated through the science of climate change, as well as responsibility toward appropriate risk and opportunity management.

Arthur also reiterated that “Old Mutual’s response to sustainability is shaped by our core business activities and competencies, the ESG issues impacting our business and stakeholders, and a deep commitment to acting responsibly and treating all stakeholders fairly. Here in East Africa, we aim to achieve our climate action commitments through key areas of action that are in our direct control: reducing the carbon footprint, seeking to invest in a more diverse energy mix, providing products and services and partnering with key stakeholders to hasten the development of investment-grade climate policy and adaptation strategies”.

Speaking during the tree planting exercise, Dickson Ritan, KWS Director Wildlife and Community Services noted that this partnership is a testament to the power of collaboration in achieving shared goals of a sustainable future for Kenya.

“As partners in this tree-planting exercise, we at KWS are committed to ensuring that these trees are not only planted but are also monitored and maintained to guarantee their long-term survival. We recognize the critical role that these trees play in preserving the environment and conserving our wildlife, and we will work closely with Old Mutual Group and other stakeholders to ensure that they are well taken care of. Through this initiative, we hope to contribute to the rehabilitation of degraded areas within our national parks, and to create a more sustainable future for generations to come.” he noted.

Besides having a great impact on the environment, the exercise is set to positively impact Old Mutual’s entire business value chain from customers, shareholders communities and all the countries in which the company has presence.

Giving her remarks, Old Mutual Foundation Chairperson Susan Omanga said the tree planting exercises is an example of the Foundation’s efforts to make a positive impact on the environment and help mitigate the effects of climate change.

“In support of the Old Mutual climate action strategy, the Foundation has framed its environmental pillar to support our carbon offsetting and conservation efforts. Particularly, we are proud to be part of the future-focused leading organisations investing in water tower protection. We hope to leverage this exercise to contribute to the restoration of degraded land, the protection of biodiversity, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We are proud to be leading this effort and look forward to working with our partners and stakeholders to achieve our goals.” said Ms. Omanga.

As part of its broader climate action strategy, Old Mutual has so far planted approximately 200,000 trees not just in the Aberdare Range, but as well in other regions across Kenya.

By Philani Mzila, Investment Manager, Founders Factory Africa
In the startup universe, one of the most valuable (if not the most valuable) finite resources you have at your disposal, as a founder,  is equity. This is because startups generally don’t have the capital to scale in market or products developed significantly enough to leverage in order to fund ongoing enterprise growth.

This makes your startup’s capitalisation table (cap table)  an integral representation of how your venture is funded from an equity perspective (including convertible notes, warrants, and equity ownership grants). The cap table represents how much of a claim each party has on the value created by the business and what they paid for their ownership stake.  Managing the cap table well is therefore  a strategic imperative for any startup founder. As a startup scales, the evolution of its cap table has serious implications on how easily the venture can attract and raise new investment.

Cap tables and investor risk tolerance
At the beginning of a startup’s journey, the founding team owns 100% of the company. Depending on the resources they have available, founders tend to self-fund the venture as much as possible (called bootstrapping) up to, and including, the pre-seed stage in order to protect their equity value. At some point, however, the resources they have can only take them so far and they need to raise external capital.

At the pre-seed stage, a startup hasn’t necessarily found product-market fit and its revenue is often not the best measure of its potential because founders are honing their minimum viable product. At best, the venture has signals of product market fit, i.e. user growth, engagement and active usage and retention. The lack of product market fit, and bankable recurring revenue is typically a deterrent for investment by later-stage investors due to their inherently lower risk tolerance.

This is where angel investors and early-stage venture capital (VC) firms step in. Angel investors are high-net-worth individuals who are highly risk-tolerant and have the financial means to invest in startups and their potential future returns, at the right price. That “right price” is usually an ownership stake in the business, ranging anywhere between 5 and 15%, with that percentage being a symbol of the risk angel investors accept in return for their capital and operational expertise. Early-stage VC firms, on their end, typically provide additional institutional capital, operational and governance support as well as credibility to ventures.

Angels and other types of early-stage investors, like Founders Factory Africa, play a vital role in the VC ecosystem. Without the high-risk tolerance these investors bring to the table, most early-stage startups would not break out of the pre-seed stage due to a lack of funding.

The role of a term sheet at the point of investment
Given the importance of a startup’s cap table in its future trajectory, it’s worth highlighting the vital role a VC term sheet performs at the point of investment. A VC term sheet is a document that outlines the terms and conditions of a VC investment. It includes details on the amount of money to be invested, the equity being granted to investors, the timing of investor liquidity, and investors’ rights in the venture.

Some of the key terms founders and investors must be familiar with when reviewing this document include:

• Valuation – The value of the company which is being used as the basis for the investment.
• Pre- and post-money valuation – The pre-money valuation is the value of the company prior to the investment, with post-money valuation the value of the company after the investment.
• Voting rights – A representation of how much say investors have in the future strategic direction of the business.
• Liquidation preference – This is a clause that determines the order in which investors and founders  are paid back in case of a liquidation or bankruptcy. Be aware: liquidation preference typically relates to any liquidity event, not just a liquidation.
• Anti-dilution-provisions – These clauses can help protect investors from dilution because of a future financing round of financing. They can have the effect of decreasing a founder’s shareholder value.

An alignment of interest with the future in mind
As both an investor and a venture builder that helps startups improve their product and find product market fit, at Founders Factory Africa, we often advise founders to be extremely careful when exchanging equity for capital. When an investor decides to invest in a startup, they are looking for an alignment of interests where the founders can make a meaningful return for starting and scaling the venture, thereby providing a higher chance of a successful exit for the investor.

Some of the errors we typically see include founders raising their initial funding at too high a valuation. This creates unrealistic expectations for future funding rounds. At times, founders ask for too much capital without deep thought into what metrics and milestones they would like to achieve with the capital, leading them to give up too much equity very early on without considering the need for future funding rounds. These scenarios, in turn, stunt the venture’s ability to raise funding and scale, due to the lack of alignment of financial interests with investors.

As a startup matures and goes through its different funding rounds, the equity allocated to founders is diluted as larger sums of investment are raised at Series A, B, or C. If the cap table is not thoughtfully constructed, the startup may find it increasingly difficult to raise capital as questions around incentives for later-stage investors increase.

The startup ecosystem is binary. Either a business grows and succeeds, or it fails. There is no in-between. The value that a startup places on its equity, the partners they choose on its journey and collectively creates is the golden thread that runs through every startup’s success or failure. A thoughtful cap ensures that a startup can become successful. A badly designed cap table can do the exact opposite.

Huawei Technologies has launched its latest cyber security service targeting the Kenyan private and public sectors deepening the use of cloud storage solutions and artificial intelligence systems amid escalating cyberattacks.

Known as Ransomware Protection 2.0 the new service has been designed to address emerging technologies including cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) that are spreading rapidly.

All of these developments, said Huawei Kenya CEO Gao Fei, mean that cyber security risks are rising. He pointed out that for the country to benefit from the expansionary economic impact of ICT, maintaining a secure ICT environment is key.

“The ICT sector is growing rapidly, it is important to ensure that every business’ systems are working well without facing malicious threats, such as ransomware, that disrupt day to day operations and bring real financial costs,” said Gao.

Nearly 40 percent of public sector organizations use cloud storage services while at least 68 percent of private sector organizations have embraced the cloud. Technology is now everywhere, with all businesses thinking how to collect data and make the most out of it; indeed, data is now a critical input propelling our economy and society. This brings explosive growth in data storage requirements as so many services now collect data as well as depend on data for critical applications. It has become challenging to handle large amounts of data efficiently, ensure OnDemand mobility of data, turn data into gold, and at the same time also protect our data. If data is worth as much as gold, it is also worth protecting.

Kenya still faces a significant threat from ransomware attacks, which have increased dramatically in recent years. Ransomware attacks, by a type of malicious software that encrypts the victim’s data and demands a ransom for its decryption, are especially on the rise.

Speaking at the event, Andrew Opiyo, Director ICT at the Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy, noted that with the acceleration of digital transformation and rapid data growth in Kenya, the country faces a significant threat from ransomware attacks, which have increased dramatically in recent years. The need for robust cyber security protection is now more crucial as a result of the recent move to roll out 25,000 wi-fi hotpots and digitize government services amongst others.

“We need to pay more attention to ransomware and other cyber-attack mechanisms and adopt necessary solutions to prevent additional attacks,” he added pointing out that with digital infrastructure that includes data storage being a critical component of the Kenya National Digital Master Plan 2022-2032, it is important for the country to pursue enhanced vigilance against cyber criminals.

According to a recent report by Kaspersky, Kenya recorded 32.8 million ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021, making it one of the most targeted countries in Africa. Hence there is a need to have solutions, such as Huawei’s Ransomware protection, which helps to prevent such attacks from happening.