TBL Mirror Fund: The meeting of Minds and Ideas

The Blue Link (TBL) is a company that matches projects and initiatives in developing countries with the corporate world in Europe. In sourcing good partners and projects in Kenya TBL was assisted by Brian Longwe, an IT consultant who is well positioned in Kenya’s emerging Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) sector. Through his mediation TBL got in touch with a new generation of Kenyan entrepreneurs, with focus and good business plans, who were searching for know-how and capital. Further research showed that due to the poorly developed capital market in Kenya there exists a big gap between micro finance below 5000 USD and institutional capital above 1.000.000 USD. This un-served bracket indicates the typical capital demand for growing SME’s that are important generators of jobs and economic growth. Also, a lack of access to seasoned and down to earth entrepreneurial know how seemed to inhibit entrepreneurial growth. These conclusion gave rise to the first ideas of establishing a Venture Capital fund for Kenya.

Simultaneously in the Netherlands, a group of experienced entrepreneurs and VC experts, headed by Robert-Jan van Ogtrop, former CEO of Bols Cointreau and industrial partner of CVC Capital, was developing a micro-credit initiative based on the model of linking entrepreneurs from Europe to entrepreneurs in East Africa. This initiative, called the Mirror Micro-finance Bank, was centered around the idea of mirroring know-how from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs.

In fruitful meetings between TBL and Robert-Jan minds connected and ideas became focused. The rough outlines of the TBL Mirror Fund were quickly developed:  matching entrepreneurial governance and capital from the West to entrepreneurs looking for added value in East Africa. Although TBL has hands-on experience on ground to establish and manage operations and to find the right partners, at that time was lacking the right investment experience and the entrepreneurial network in Europe to connect it to the Kenyan businesses. Robert-Jan and his group were missing the on-ground operational hands-and-feet to operationalize their plans. The emerging collaboration put these essential building blocks in place as a basis for the TBL Mirror Fund.