A US-based Kenyan entrepreneur Margaret Nyamumbo has received Sh44million for her coffee business after she convinced one of Shark Tank judges to buy five (5) per cent stake of her business.
Ms Nyamumbo owns and runs, a firm that exports African coffee to America.
Nyamumbo the founder and CEO of Kahawa 1893, became the talk of town on Saturday, February 18 2023, after she pitched a top notch presentation on her business to potential investors on Shark Tank.
Shark Tank is an American reality show were aspiring entrepreneurs from around the world pitch their business models to a panel of investors and persuade them to invest money in their idea.
Nyamumbo, an alumni of the Harvard Business School told the judges that her that her Kahawa 1893 coffee business is the best product in the world.
She pitched her business to investors Mark Cuban, Emma Grede, Robert Herjavec, Kevin O'Leary and Lori Greiner in the show that aired on Saturday at 4am Kenyan time on ABC Television.
"I grew up on my grandfather's coffee farm in Kenya. We are very proud of the coffee that grows on our soil; unfortunately, farmers don't always make enough for the delicious coffee that they produce. In fact, 90 per cent of the labour and coffee come from women but so many are not compensated because they do not own the land," she said.
It was Emma Grede who convinced Ms Nyamumbo to take Sh44million ($350,000) she was seeking but for an eight (8) per cent stake in the business, putting her company valuation at Sh500million ($4.4million).
Nyamumbo told the panel that hers was about sharing the wealth and brewing a coffee revolution.
"I grew up on my grandfather's coffee farm in Kenya. We are very proud of the coffee that grows on our soil; unfortunately, farmers don't always make enough for the delicious coffee that they produce. In fact, 90 per cent of the labour and coffee come from women but so many are not compensated because they do not own the land," she says.
Nyamumbo moved to the US for her undergraduate studies in 2007 after leaving her lucrative Wall Street job working with retail and consumer companies to start Kahawa 1893 in 2017.She previously worked as a consultant at the World Bank in Kenya.
Her company is named after the year that coffee was first planted in Kenya, but too her it is more about designing the future of the coffee supply chain than honouring the status quo of the past.
She told the panel that she is all about sharing the wealth and "brewing a coffee revolution".
