Overview

Rootical Start-up Studio enables social entrepreneurs in Uganda to build and own their regenerative agri-food businesses. We aim to regenerate not only agriculture but also finance and entrepreneurship. Our work is based on 3 pillars: 🌱 Regenerative agriculture and agroecology as the best paradigms for our future food systems. 🤝 Purpose-driven entrepreneurship to drive both impact, profitability and sustainability of inclusive business models that address pivotal food system challenges. 💸 Steward ownership to change the way our food companies of tomorrow are financed, managed and owned, moving away from venture capital to true impact investing. A start-up studio is a streamlined process to produce startups. The root problems Rootical aims to address are threefold: ecosystems collapse caused by industrial agriculture and food production, staggering unemployment on the African continent, and sharply rising economic inequality. Making bio-nutrient dense food accessible for all is a key goal. In a 3-step, human-centred systemic venture building process, a cohort of 40 Ugandan social entrepreneurs will: 1️⃣ Become food system thinkers, conduct a participatory food system analysis and identify key challenges 2️⃣ Develop, test and iterate on solutions and inclusive business models, and; 3️⃣ Build teams and get ready to launch those regenerative start-ups. 5-6 Start-ups will be co-founded in the start-up studio, to incorporate based on steward ownership principles in the second half of the yearly studio cycle. We provide purpose-driven entrepreneurs with the access to expertise, funding, tools, and a systemic venture building process to build and own their agri-food companies. 💥 Rootical is implemented by Fresh Ventures Studio (NL) and SHONA (UG). DOEN Foundation & Biovision have committed to fund 70% of our pilot. 🔎 Looking for a core group of impact aligned investors to join our start-ups' journeys.