Truvalu.enterprises Investment Boot Camp for Ag-MSEs

LightCastle Impact in association with Truvalu.enterprises held an Impact Investment Boot Camp for Ag-MSEs on the 9 th of July, 2018, at RDRS Guest House in Rangpur. Truvalu is an impact-investment company based out of Netherlands that works with growing Ag-MSEs in key 10+ emerging markets, including Latin America, Africa and some parts of Asia; aiming to create fair and inclusive value chains.

Both firms worked together in hosting this boot camp, which saw more than 70 agro based entrepreneurs attend the event to learn more about impact investment, developing business management capacity, obtaining market linkage, and product development. 6 separate discussion sessions were held, where the entrepreneurs were given in-depth knowledge of business development strategies and tactics, along with ways to improve the value chain using the Business Model canvas. The participants also took part in a small workshop, where they were trained and carefully guided to help understand ways to improve their financial structure. The participants were given cases to solve, so that they could gain understanding of the agro-sector and realize the potential of Agro based businesses. The workshop was followed by a one-to-one session, between the partakers and the instructors, in order to seek out the more prospective companies from the rest. Out of 70 participants, 26 of made it to the next round and were divided into groups of two, one for direct investment and the other for a 45-day accelerator program.

Jaap-Jan Verboom, founder and executive director of Truvalu.group and Truvalu.enterprises was accompanied by Ms. Sharawwat Islam, managing director of Truvalu – Bangladesh and her team, where they gave some valuable insights of the agro industry, along with holding sessions on how to scale up businesses and shared important factors to consider when dealing with capital and finance. Moreover, Truvalu also took part in holding key interviews and presentations, to help the participants realize their potential through the assistance of an impact investment.

LightCastle Partners also helped run the event, where Bijon Islam, co-founder & CEO at LightCastle Partners; was joined by his Managing Director & co-founder Ivdad Ahmed Khan Mojlish who, along with his team, hosted a workshop to help entrepreneurs develop a business model canvas, to help strengthen their value chain. Moreover, the team also held key interviews with the selected participants to help shape their business models into a more sustainable and productive one. Supporting partner, Syngenta Foundation also assisted were also present in the event to help facilitate and provide expertise on the field of work, to help the enterprises see the bigger picture.

The next phase is the Impact Investment Accelerator Program which starts in August, where LightCastle Impact team will work with the shortlisted participants for 45 days.