BCGDV Social Ventures Program Part I: Introducing IMPACC — Building Startups Across Sub-Saharan Africa
Learn how BCG Digital Ventures is partnering with IMPACC to find and scale entrepreneurial ideas across the African continent
This year marked a significant period of growth for social venture IMPACC, which supports startups across Africa by equipping entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed and scale their small startups into microfranchises. Future-proofing the business model of an ambitious nonprofit is no easy feat, and a timely collaboration with BCGDV helped launch an innovative B2B platform to ensure IMPACC’s continued growth.
In December 2020, we were proud to appoint IMPACC as a co-recipient of the 2021 BCG Digital Ventures Social Ventures Program. Now in its third year, the Social Venture Program comprises a dedicated sprint — offered pro bono — to the most promising companies with a strong social mission. Program alumni include, Plan A and RECUP.
IMPACC’s Vision: Empowering African Entrepreneurs to Provide Solutions for their Communities
In a nutshell, IMPACC is a nonprofit company that builds startups in Africa — it identifies green companies, helps them create green jobs for people in need. A core part of its ethos is to seek out entrepreneurial ideas from within the country: the African continent has the highest percentage of entrepreneurs in the world, and IMPACC leverages this by identifying green ideas that have early indicators of success.
IMPACC recognizes that local people are best placed to identify, create and implement relevant solutions for issues that affect their communities. Locally developed technology for example is most likely to meet local needs, and is the easiest to maintain in the long run. With this in mind, IMPACC supports innovative, eco-friendly business solutions that contribute to social change.
To provide just one example — one of IMPACC’s partners is MakaPads, a sanitary towels business that creates a sustainable and affordable product, while also empowering girls to attend and stay enrolled in education. Period poverty is a key driver of girls’ absenteeism from school in many parts of Africa; this issue is compounded by basic sanitation facilities — even if girls can afford to buy period products, pads clog up toilets and create plumbing issues. MakaPads solves both of these issues by manufacturing compostable pads, made from recycled materials, so that girls feel empowered to attend school. On top of this, MakaPads creates local jobs, providing a circular benefit to the economy.
When a business concept has proven its viability through initial success but carries too high a risk for investors seeking reliable returns, IMPACC also steps in by helping to scale these businesses through a microfranchise approach across a country or region, maximizing impact wherever it is most needed. Makapads is currently undergoing this scaling process to expand beyond Uganda.
It is IMPACC’s willingness to support entrepreneurs in these kinds of areas, combined with its ground-up, grassroots approach that has built sustainable businesses, provided solutions to local problems, and generated employment. This has reaped significant benefits to local economies across Sub-Saharan Africa.
BCGDV x IMPACC: Leveraging B2B and Aligning Social Missions
From the outset of the BCGDV x IMPACC collaboration, the nonprofit came to the DV team with a clear ask: to create a gamified casino-like fundraising platform for individuals to access. While this was a good idea, the DV team identified a different pathway that better fit IMPACC’s business model. DV analyzed the market, and suggested that instead of focusing on private donations, IMPACC could leverage the often overlooked but lucrative corporate donation space.
IMPACC’s founder Till Wahnbaeck said that the biggest outcome from the sprint was the honest feedback from the DV team and its bold decision to take the sprint in a different direction.
“This is testament to the quality of DV — they don’t do what the client wants to hear,” he says. “DV could have created a shiny presentation with bells and whistles, but instead they decided to make the problem their own, and take ownership of carving out a meaningful solution. What’s more, they achieved in weeks what I thought would take months.” — Till Wahnbaeck, Founder of IMPACC.
Rather than create a fundraising platform for individual donors, the BCGDV x IMPACC collaboration instead built a new B2B platform for engaging with businesses. The platform demonstrated IMPACC’s ability to match a donor company’s strategy and goals with that of a promising small company in Africa — whether that was a similar product or service, or a similar ethos around sustainability or the empowerment of women.
The success of the B2B platform was grounded in engagement. By tying corporate donations to the company’s strategy, and enabling employees a chance to engage through donations or by volunteering, Impacc became an easier sell — as companies and individuals could support entrepreneurs and businesses that matched their ethos. Over the course of eight weeks, IMPACC received guidance, support, and input from a dedicated team of DVers. On the DV side, the team was impressed by the vision and ethos of IMPACC’s offering and their success to date in empowering African entrepreneurs and scaling solutions. DV’s Michel Tucker, GM of the sprint said: “IMPACC is not trying to force a ‘white savior’ approach onto these startups — they recognize the talent, and the fact that African entrepreneurs have the solutions and are more qualified to offer them. There is a clarity to IMPACC’s strategy, empowering business leaders and then filling a specific knowledge gap by helping scale these fantastic startups to micro franchises, bringing solutions to bear and generating employment across different towns and villages.”
The Future of African Startups
DV’s strategy to build a platform that taps into the corporate sphere has bolstered IMPACC’s business model and future growth. The B2B platform built during this sprint fuels the engine that powers the ventures supported by IMPACC.
IMPACC is now taking the wider learnings from the sprint to further develop its digital program. “Until I met the DV team, I had never heard of job titles like ‘Growth Architect’ — now IMPACC is seeking to hire one to help drive our B2B sales and create a sustainable funnel of funding,” explains Till. “They need to be as good as the DV folks though — and DV has set the bar pretty high.”
