Pharo Ventures

Pharo Ventures is the commercial, for-profit arm of Pharo Foundation and has been set up to harness the power of a vibrant private sector by investing in enterprises across a variety of spheres within East Africa. The objective is to build and grow commercially and environmentally sustainable businesses. The focus is maximising the creation of economic value and jobs for local communities.

We have a vision of an economically vibrant and inclusive Africa. Matching that vision is our ambition to create a portfolio of sustainable business across the region that provide superior products or services and increase the competitiveness of their sectors while creating thousands of new jobs.  We believe we can achieve our vision and ambitions by investing in the human and physical capital of Africa.

Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, Pharo Ventures has country offices in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa) and Somaliland (Hargeisa).

Background

A vibrant private sector is critical for sustainable job creation and economic development in any country. With this in mind, Pharo Foundation has identified the need to develop and run for profit enterprises across East Africa to achieve our job creation goal.

Pharo Ventures was subsequently set up as the social enterprise arm, aiming to achieve the following three objectives;

• • maximising value added
  • maximising the number of jobs created
  • reaching profitability within a few years, ideally 3 or less

Given the overall philanthropic mission, the purpose of these “enterprises” is not to maximise shareholder profit but to support the vision of the Foundation.