During my time at Beyond Capital Ventures (BCV), an East Africa and India impact venture capital fund, I worked on several due diligence (DD) projects for new investments and on operational projects, such as supporting the opening of the new Nairobi office and planning an office launch party. As an investment fellow, my focus was on sourcing opportunities that lead to new investments. I formally introduced over ten companies and went into a more substantial DD process for four companies. All of these companies are located across East Africa and target to increase the livelihood of people with less than $15 income per day. This is at the core of BCV's mission and investment goal. During the DD processe,s I met with founders and teams and conducted several site visits. With the next investment committee (IC) being in late September, I hope that one of my proposals will be chosen for investment. On the operational side, I helped to choose, open, and brand the new office and to introduce it to the local ecosystem via a launch party. We had over 100 guests attend from different VC funds, startups, and the broader Nairobi ecosystem. This way we could further immerse into the local community and see where we can support with investments as well as advice.

The skills I learned at CBS from classes ,as well as from different experiential learning opportunities, were essential to be successful during my fellowship. All of my VC-related classes taught me the theory that I needed from my first day on the job. I knew the different processes, instruments, and language that was needed to have serious conversations with my team and external parties right away. My experiential learning opportunities from my Climate Tech class, as well as the Three Cairns Fellowship, helped me approach the VC DD process in the right way. With this knowledge, I could work on my assigned tasks unsupervised. While I was in constant exchange with my supervisor, it was very helpful for him to not have to explain everything. Additionally, my exposure to funds and startups during my time at CBS gave me a lot of confidence to talk to these players. While I was firstly only attending company calls and interviews with startups, I quickly took on the leading role in these calls and conducted them by myself. This freed up a lot of time for my team as they could rely on my very solid CBS foundation.

Due to my relocation to Nairobi for the fellowship, I faced some smaller challenges that come from being in a new place. One being the different culture and work styles of local counterparties that I collaborated with. Both startups as well as any type of local service providers were often a lot less direct in their communication as I am used to. Additionally, it was often necessary to follow up on different types of requests, as something that we have agreed upon in my mind may not be agreed upon in someone else's mind. Outside of work, it was also challenging at first to get used to the new living surroundings. While the apartment I rented was generally nice, it constantly had issues that needed to be fixed, such as no hot water, no power, no internet, and not functioning kitchen tools. It often took me a lot of time to fix these things with my landlord, and I was not used to so many constant issues. Lastly, it was hard to adjust not being able to go for walks. During the day it was possible, but not recommended due to missing sidewalks on most streets. In the evenings it posed a security risk to walk around and thus I could not do it. As I like to walk to places and was used to do that in NYC, it was difficult for me to cut this out. I was able to take trips to the park and go for runs and walks there, but it took significantly more effort to do this.

My main takeaway from my work at BCV is the assurance that I want to work for an impact VC fund that focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the future. Coming to CBS with this goal, and trying it out firsthand, gives me the confidence that I pursued the right career aspirations. I got to know many investors through this fellowship and plan to stay in touch with this network in order to land a dream full-time role in the next few years. Until then, I will work in management consulting and try to get as much SSA exposure as I can. Also, it was very promising to find an amazing CBS and greater Columbia community in Nairobi. There is a sizeable crowd of people with similar career goals that I could connect with and share experiences.

Lastly, my work was very rewarding as I gained real insight into how the invested money generates a positive impact in the communities where the startups operate. I met a variety of founders that had a strong goal to support the livelihood of the communities around them through their offerings. Visiting those companies in person helped me to understand the connection between investment and impact. I will continue to stay in close contact with BCV and hope that future CBS students can make the same rewarding experiences as I did.