<figure class="image image-style-align-center"><img src="/uploads/mftc_logo_tm_1_0104e07f41.png"></figure><h1 style="text-align:center;">Mama Fresh: Baking Injera and Creating Impact in Ethiopia</h1>It was a cool and dewy morning in August when I made my way over to <a href="http://www.mama-fresh.com/">Mama Fresh Injera PLC’s</a> new manufacturing and export facility to speak with members of the baking team. Clouds were off in the distance, threatening the rain that comes so often to Ethiopia during the summer months, but neither the early hour nor threatening weather dampened my spirits - I was getting an in-depth look at how Mama Fresh not only makes injera, but positive impact as well.Mama Fresh is Ethiopia’s largest commercial manufacturer and exporter of fresh-baked injera. The Impact Angel Network’s investment in Mama Fresh in January 2014 helped finance the modern facility that I visited on this particular morning. The investment is also expected to enable Mama Fresh to increase its production capacity, create jobs in the local economy and explore new market opportunities for injera, including the growing gluten-free markets in the U.S. and Europe. While this investment’s expected social impact for the local community and greater Ethiopian economy is significant and important in this company’s story, my interest that day was actually on a smaller scale. I wanted to find out how Mama Fresh, through this investment, was achieving impact at the individual level, specifically for underprivileged women. Injera baking is considered “women’s work” in Ethiopia because most household baking is done by female family members or female hired help, so Mama Fresh has had the opportunity to provide work as injera bakers for many women in Addis Ababa.Mama Fresh gave me the wonderful opportunity to speak with several of its diligent and hard-working injera bakers. When I arrived at Mama Fresh to meet with these bakers, the facility was buzzing with activity – the morning shift employees were completing preparations to start the injera baking for the day. Out of the many bakers that I was introduced to, one baker stood out amongst the rest for her reputation of being one of the most diligent and hard-working employees in the company - Belaynesh Millkiyas. Belaynesh kindly shared her personal story with me, which I believe shows how Mama Fresh is creating impact across the spectrum, from the country level all the way down to the individual.Belaynesh was born in Hossana and moved to Addis Ababa in 2004. Like many people, she came to the capital looking for work, and after a series of events, found her way working for Mama Fresh.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/belaynesh_collage_2_98dcbc0ae8.jpg"></figure>When did you start working with Mama Fresh, and how did you hear about the company? I started working at Mama Fresh in November 2010; it has been five year since I started working here. I have a relative who used to work at Mama Fresh as a supervisor in the dough room, and she recommended me to MF management. But she [has since] left MF and is currently working at another company.How did you become an injera baker? I have been baking injera since I was a little girl. We had a family business [local café] at Hossana, and I used to bake injera there. I wanted to go and work in the Middle East, and that is why I [initially] came to the city [Addis Ababa], but after realizing this is not a good choice for me, I stopped and began searching for work here. After changing several jobs I started working at Mama Fresh as injera baker.How does Mama Fresh injera compare to the injera you make at home, or you grew up eating? Mama Fresh injera compared to the injera I make at home is much healthier because it is made from pure teff. I usually mix other grains with teff to make injera at home and so do other households. The process here is also much cleaner because we are using clean utensils; the workers are very efficient and the process is much more modernized than baking injera at home. Overall, the production process is safe, clean and dough processing is different from what I do at home. Besides, the teff we use is quality teff and not mixed with other grains - I know because the teff is ground here at the facility - I prefer eating Mama Fresh injera than any other injera, even from what I make at home.How has working for Mama Fresh changed your life? Before joining Mama Fresh I used to work at a carpet-manufacturing factory as an operator. While I was working there, I had my first child and took a maternity leave, but this didn’t make my bosses happy so they had to let me go! I started looking for other job, but I was required to work on night shifts, which was impossible for me because I had to take care of my baby. That is when I heard about Mama Fresh from one of my relatives who was working here. Although I haven’t seen that much growth in my salary, working at Mama Fresh has made my life stable, so I can raise my kid. He is now seven years old and is in first grade. The management team is very understanding about my problem[s], they are good people, and I feel like they are my family. They help me out when I have money problems by lending me money to pay for my kid’s school.What is your favorite part about working for Mama Fresh as an injera baker? I like baking injera because it a quiet job, and I can focus on baking for a long time.Your reputation at Mama Fresh is that you are one of the most productive / quickest injera bakers in the company – how did you come to be so skilled? I have been baking injera since I was a child, so it came from experience. And the incentive given to us if we bake more injera we will [then] get paid more money. Currently the quota is to bake 350 injera per shift, but on a good day I usually bake from 450 to 600 injera per day, using four to five metads [ovens]. But it all depends on the power available and time I have. Once I get in the facility I am very focused, I just want to bake injera.Has your job at Mama Fresh made you feel empowered as a woman? Yes, I earn my own money and raise my child so it has made me feel empowered as a woman. Since I am a single mom, I am required to support my child and his needs. It has inspired me to be an entrepreneur – I want to start my own business.

RENEW has a Q&A session with a Mama Fresh baker to talk about injera and impact.

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Mama Fresh: Baking Injera and Creating Impact in Ethiopia

<h1 style="text-align:center;">Entoto Observations</h1>Today is Sunday and the eve of Meskel in Ethiopia. It is a leap year according to the Ethiopian calendar, so Meskel will occur tomorrow on September 28, instead of its usual occurrence on September 27. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meskel">Wikipedia</a>, Meskel is an Ethiopian Orthodox holiday that represents the discovery of the true cross. In a dream, Queen Eleni was instructed to build a bonfire and told that the smoke from the fire would reveal the location of the true cross.Today, Matt and I hiked up Entoto Mountain, and though we have lived in Ethiopia for more than three years, there were new observations to be gathered and processed. That is the beauty of living in a foreign land - the learning never ends! Today we passed hundreds of people as we huffed and puffed up the mountain. Donkeys, sheep and cows being walked to market; the faithful going to church; tree branches dragged to neighborhood bonfire sites; soccer games; vegetables and coal being sold to prepare classic Ethiopian dishes; and the lists goes on of the endless, colorful activities that make up the Ethiopian experience. The most noticeable difference today was the yellow meskel daisy. The bright bit of sunshine made many appearances, being sold in markets across the city and by children who had plucked the graceful little flower from fields where it grows naturally this time of year. Tonight it will grace the floors of shops and homes underneath the traditional coffee ceremony setting, and be added to the bonfire piers that will be burned tonight in representation of finding the cross.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/collage_entoto_ff1bc48ad5.jpg"></figure>If you are interested in experiencing this unique country and culture first-hand and learning why major news publications like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/13/travel/ethiopia-worlds-best-tourism-destination/">CNN</a> and <a href="http://qz.com/447128/ethiopia-has-been-voted-the-worlds-best-tourism-destination-for-2015/">Quartz</a> are saying Ethiopia is among the top travel destinations, consider an <a href="angel-investors-travel-ethiopia.html">Econ-Tourism Trip</a> with RENEW. We will make sure you get to the top of Entoto.

RENEW team members Matt and Laura Davis reflect on this special Ethiopian holiday.

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Entoto Observations

<h1 style="text-align:center;">Matt Davis Speaks at U.S. - Ethiopia Business and Investment Summit</h1><figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/photo_la_investment_summit_2013_panel_0_62d172137e.jpg"></figure> RENEW's Matt Davis spoke at a panel on investing at the U.S. - Ethiopia Business and Investment Summit in Los Angeles on Friday, August 1. A similar summit was also held in Houston, Texas, and the main goal of the summit was to promote investment in Ethiopia and to invite investors to explore opportunities there. Over 300 business leaders, investors and government officials were at the summit, including Ethiopia's President, Mulatu Teshome, who invited investors to visit and invest in his country and highlighted several sectors of interest for potential investors.Matt sat on a panel of investors and funds and shared insight on the investment environment in Ethiopia. The panel focused on building a strategy for investing in Ethiopia, whether the size of investment is $200K or $2B. Other topics that were discussed included the importance of working with a local partner; the ease of working with the Ethiopian government; affordable labor and energy costs; and exciting opportunities in local manufacturing and export including Ethiopia's commodities that have a clear competitive advantage such as coffee, sesame and teff.Some West Coast-based members of RENEW's Impact Angel Network were also in attendance at the summit.

The RENEW team joins the Business and Investment Summit in Los Angeles.

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Matt Davis Speaks at U.S. - Ethiopia Business and Investment Summit

<h1 style="text-align:center;">RENEW’s Impact Angel Network Closes Fifth Investment</h1>RENEW is pleased to announce that members of the Impact Angel Network (IAN) and another U.S. investment group recently signed an agreement to invest into a sesame company based in Ethiopia. The investors anticipate that over the next five years, the company will support more than 10,000 small farmers, strengthen the sesame industry in Ethiopia, generate $32 million in export sales and create more than 60 jobs in the manufacturing sector.The investment, like others the IAN has made into small and medium enterprises in East Africa, is anticipated to have a significant impact in the local economy.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0064_4ec9b054d2.jpg"><figcaption>A sesame facility in Humera, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is Africa's largest sesame producer and exporter.</figcaption></figure>As a partner of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Feed the Future Agribusiness Market Development program, RENEW conducted investment analysis on the company. This investment would not be possible without the continued support of USAID, which aims to help stimulate the growth of small and medium enterprises in Ethiopia.This is the IAN’s fourth investment in Ethiopia since 2013, and their fifth investment in the East Africa region.

The IAN invests in a sesame manufacturing and exporting company

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RENEW’s Impact Angel Network Closes Fifth Investment

<h1 style="text-align:center;">RENEW Stories of 2014: Part One</h1>Built through laughter and heartache, challenges and great opportunity, stories capture the substance of life. The key actors in our story are the investors, entrepreneurs, development partners, colleagues, friends and family members who make RENEW and the Impact Angel Network (IAN) what it is today. In gratitude, we thought we’d take a few moments to recount some of our favorite stories from 2014.One of our favorite moments from 2014 is the day that Laura and Matt decided to visit the METAD coffee farm. In Laura’s own words:<figure class="image image-style-align-right image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0052_667d4a2513.jpg"></figure> “Mud and rain are really not my favorite things,but the image in my memory is epic: kids using banana leaves as umbrellas, trucks stuck up to their axles in mud, and Matt covered head to toe. I fled our land cruiser and rushed through the rain towards the welcoming arms of a young villager woman, and I sheltered under the porch of her mud brick and thatched hut. We were hours away from any semblance of modernity. Whose idea was it to visit our coffee farm near Yirgacheffe in the middle of the rainy season anyway? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-align-left"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0061_4fdf15c714.jpg"></figure>OK, I’ll admit it, it was mine – the desire to escape the city and go to that magical, mystical, ‘jungle-y’ place got the better of me. We didn’t make it to the actual farm on that trip, but ‘Ethiopia the beautiful’ renewed me once more and the jilted, jumbled conversations with the villagers gave me images of the impact of our investment: the hundreds of laborers who we employ at the farm and processing site, and the children who go to the school supported by METAD. These faces make up the real stories.”P.S. – Have no fear METAD investors, our team did make it to the farm to check up on things a few weeks later.

A three-part blog series with RENEW's favorite stories from 2014: Part one

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RENEW Stories of 2014: Part One

<h1 style="text-align:center;">RENEW Stories of 2014: Part Three</h1>This past year, RENEW has been working to close an investment in the first private ambulance company in Ethiopia. We are excited to share another one of our favorite stories of 2014. In Laura’s own words:<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0630_0_fb26a280bf.jpg"></figure>“This past summer, I learned that the owner was headed to the United States to gain exposure to advanced emergency medical systems. I emailed my former colleagues at Mayo Clinic asking if they would host him, so that he could experience a world-class health system, including air ambulances, dispatch centers and training programs. We arranged it all, including his stay with my parents outside Rochester, Minnesota.I was so excited about<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0030_21f62b2ac0.jpg"></figure>his visit, but it wasn't until he came back to Ethiopia that I realized he had been confused by my invitation to visit a 'clinic in Minnesota'. In Ethiopia, a clinic is typically as small as one nurse in a remote village. He had gone to Mayo Clinic because he trusted me, and he came back to Ethiopia astonished and full of vision for building a world-class emergency response system in a place that really needs it. We are thrilled to be involved with an entrepreneur with so much potential for Ethiopia.”Looking forward, 2015 will be an exciting year for RENEW and the IAN. We are planning for more investments, some exits, second rounds, returns from our current portfolio, and Econ-Tourism Trips to Ethiopia. RENEW is also working to make it easier for our investors to diversify, connect with their companies, and meet with each other. We look forward to creating stories with you in 2015!

A three-part blog series with RENEW's favorite 2014 stories: Part three

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RENEW Stories of 2014: Part Three

<h1 style="text-align:center;">Angel Investors Travel to Ethiopia</h1>2015 has already proven to be a busy year, with RENEW hosting an Econ-Tourism Trip for members of the Impact Angel Network from Atlanta, Georgia during the first week of February. The Atlanta trip was initiated by <a href="http://www.signaturefd.com/">SignatureFD</a>, a wealth management firm in Atlanta with a mission to help their clients "live confidently, live fully, live purposefully." The group met with many Ethiopian entrepreneurs and visited a number of businesses in and around Addis Ababa. All in all, the investors were introduced to a total of eleven companies, spanning multiple sectors – from textiles to healthcare to food production - seven of which are being considered for upcoming investments.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/2015_february_atlanta_0_d22868a78f.jpg"></figure>During the trip, the group also went on a tour of Addis Ababa, which included a bird’s eye view of the city from the Entoto Mountains and a look back in history, with stops at Tomaco Coffee and the National Museum of Ethiopia, home of the infamous <a href="http://www.history.com/news/famed-lucy-fossils-discovered-in-ethiopia-40-years-ago">Lucy</a> skeleton - the oldest known hominid remains. The group also visited Mercato, the largest open air market in Africa, as well as enjoyed a reception at the Radisson Blu with partners and members of the business community.RENEW is in the midst of planning the next Econ-Tourism trip, which is slated to take place this summer with a focus on a multi-generational experience. Contact us to learn more about scheduling your own Econ-Tourism Trip!

A group of Impact Angel Network members travel to Ethiopia on an Econ-Tourism Trip

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Angel Investors Travel to Ethiopia

<h1 style="text-align:center;">Preparing for a New Era of Africa</h1>The second episode of <a href="https://soundcloud.com/renewstrategies/preparing-for-a-new-era-of-africa-1">Investing On The Frontier</a> beings with hosts Matt and Laura Davis hiking on the trails of Entoto Mountain in preparation for their climb up Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) in a few weeks. This episode also coincides with the Ethiopian Orthodox holiday of Meskel, where hundreds of individuals light small bonfires in honor of Queen Eleni, who was instructed to build a bonfire and told that the smoke would reveal the location of the true cross. Be sure to check out <a href="entoto-observations.html">Laura’s blog</a> on her observations and reflections of this year’s celebrations.In keeping with the theme of preparation, Matt and Laura share insights that will help listeners prepare for a new era on the continent of Africa. RENEW advocates and believes that the continent will experience significant growth over the next few decades, and Westerners should start engaging with Africa in a new way and not miss out on this great business opportunity. We need to better understand and become familiar with the cultural, economic and investment environments of the 54 different countries that make up this great continent.<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/226637377&amp;color=ff5500"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/renewstrategies" title="Investing On The Frontier" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Investing On The Frontier</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/renewstrategies/preparing-for-a-new-era-of-africa-1" title="Preparing for a New Era of Africa" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Preparing for a New Era of Africa</a></div></div>Be sure to tune in and listen to Matt and Laura’s recommendations on how listeners can start coming to terms with and shifting their perspective towards the “New Africa”.&nbsp;

Tune in for the second episode in RENEW’s podcast series, Investing On The Frontier.

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Preparing for a New Era of Africa

<h1 style="text-align:center;">RENEW at Women in Agribusiness Conference</h1>RENEW’s Laura Davis recently attended and spoke at a conference in Ethiopia, hosted by The Women in Agribusiness Leadership Network (WALN) in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). &nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-align-right image_resized" style="width:24.52%;"><img src="/uploads/dsc00069_fb97ed64bd.jpg"></figure>U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, Patricia Haslach and Ethiopia’s First Lady Roman Tesfaye opened the event, which focused on celebrating more than 100 women entrepreneurs and leaders from across Ethiopia who had a positive impact in the field of agribusiness. The women attendees were able to share experiences, best practices, and many other things related to owning and operating agricultural businesses.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;During this event, Laura sat on a panel that discussed private equity and the field of agribusiness. She was able to share some of RENEW’s hard earned insights on the relationship between small-medium enterprises (SMEs), access to capital and angel investing. &nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-align-left image_resized" style="width:21.34%;"><img src="/uploads/dsc_0630_6ee7fbe2c6.jpg"></figure>In the words of Ambassador Haslach, “women make up nearly half of the agriculture workforce in Ethiopia, but unfortunately face a number of disadvantages, including limited access to training, market information, and other resources, and problems in accessing markets and credit.”**Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs in Ethiopia fall into the category of the “missing middle”, enterprises that are considered to be too large or established for micro-institutional investors, and too small and risky for traditional financing. But, this is where impact investment firms like RENEW come in to play – by providing SMEs access to the “missing” capital they need in order to scale and become attractive to larger private equity and institutional investors. This is all accomplished through RENEW’s wonderful Impact Angel Network, one of the largest U.S. based angel networks for Africa.&nbsp;All in all, it was an enlightening and inspiring conference that RENEW was happy to be a part of.