Matt Davis decided a while ago to make his life’s work boosting the development of small enterprises in Africa. To that end, three years ago, he started RENEW Strategies, an impact investment advisory firm that manages a network of wealthy families with a similar interest in African development. They’re part of the Impact Angel Network, founded by Davis, which invests entirely in Ethiopian ventures he scouts out.  Members of the network just made the group’s latest investment, in East Africa Emergency Services. It delivers procurement, administrative and other services to providers of emergency ambulance care in East Africa.  For Davis, it’s all about “trying to get capital to companies that are starved for funding in this part of the world,” he says. “There’s a massive gap between the women with sewing machines on the side of the road and huge companies.” In other words, big private equity funds go after the big stuff. ”If I were to raise a $100 million fund, I wouldn’t want to do 50 deals at $1 million,” he says. “I’d want five deals at $10 million–but that doesn’t produce the kind of impact we want to create.”  Matt Davis (left) on an on-site visit  Davis lives in Addis Ababa, where he “does what a normal fund manager does,” he says, including sourcing deals and screening and vetting potential investments. ”We’re on the ground looking for deals,” he says  Every month, he holds a conference call for members–there are now around 80, in chapters located in Washington, D.C, Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver, among other places–during which he talks about about five companies that he recommends, winnowed down from a list of 20 or 25. He usually presents them in a package of three or so deals, with LLCs set up for each one. After that, investors indicate which they want to participate in, generally investing $500,000 to $200,000 per deal. There usually are one or two packages a year.  Next Next step, says Davis: “That’s when we act like a traditional venture capital firm, working with the companies, doing cash flow projects, making sure they have everyone on board they need and the like.”  He also takes members on trips to meet their investments; usually people go every year or two.
The Impact Angel Network focuses on small to medium-sized companies in Ethopia and just made its latest investment.