Where we focus · Kenya

One flagship programme and a pre-investment study to explore using tomorrow’s technologies in Kenya.

Our work spans the technologies and ecosystems where Kenya can build genuinely new, globally relevant industries.

The two areas

The scaling flagship, and the pilot pre-investment study beside it.

Each area below says what the work is — and where published evidence sits behind it, that evidence is named and sourced.

01 / Flagship programme

Scaling green SMEs

Helping post-revenue green businesses across energy, circular economy, clean manufacturing, and sustainable agriculture make the jump to commercial scale.

These are companies that have already proved a model and are earning revenue — the point at which Kenya’s support ecosystem thins out. Incubators and seed funds are built for validation; what comes next needs different instruments, different expertise, and capital on different terms. That is what the Scaling and Investment Derisking Programme was designed to supply.

How the programme works

02 / Pilot pre-investment study

Bio-fermentation in Kenya

Backing the latest developments in bio-fermentation — producing food and non-food products locally, and positioning Kenya as a regional leader in one of the industries of the future.

Bio-fermentation is an old technology — it makes beer and yoghurt — that recent advances have opened onto a much wider range of products: alternative proteins, biofertilizers, and simple molecules for the chemical industry. Its advanced applications are barely present in Kenya, and the policy framework for them is still in its infancy.

Kenya currently imports 100% of its acetic acid, 70% of its poultry feed protein substitutes, and 50% of its fertilizer. Three pilot applications were identified as the way in: protein for chicken feed, biofertilizer for beans, and acetic acid for the chemical industry.

Supporting the Adoption of Biofermentation Process Technologies in Kenya: Towards the Creation of a Sovereign Industry — KAS Kenya Policy Paper No. 2/2025, by Michele Castegnaro and Dr. Veerle Vandeweerd, published by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Read the policy paper

The flagship programme

What a company in the cohort actually gets

The Scaling and Investment Derisking Programme supports growth-stage sustainable development SMEs through five lines of work, delivered by one team rather than handed between organisations.

Comprehensive scale diagnostics and targeted long-term support
Individualised AI, sustainability and technological coaching
Business transformation and market creation
Investment readiness and matching
Investor mobilisation, and a revolving fund beyond the five years

The method is not improvised

Every company is measured against the ScaleUpScan, a diagnostic built on close to 700 venture assessments conducted over seven years and distilled into 15 Scale-Up Success Factors. It is the same instrument for every business in the programme, which is what makes progress comparable rather than anecdotal.

That evidence base is ScaleUpNation’s and was built primarily on European technology ventures. The programme applies it in Kenya — it does not claim African provenance for it.

Two phases, then a fund

Phase 1 takes up to 100 companies through diagnosis and a defined 24-month growth strategy. Phase 2 takes 25 of them — selected on performance, not application — through implementation, restructuring and investor matching to capital close. Beyond that, the convertible loans are designed to be recoverable: repayments and any success fees return to a revolving fund that backs later cohorts.

See the phases and figures

Get in touch

Let’s build Kenya’s scaling infrastructure together.

We’re talking with funders and strategic partners who want to help growth-stage green businesses reach scale. If that’s you, we’d like to hear from you.

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