US-based Kenyan entrepreneur Margaret Nyamumbo made waves last year after making an excellent pitch at the popular TV show Shark Tank for her coffee business Kahawa 1893.
At the pitch, she was offered Sh. 44 million by Emma Grede, a British businesswoman, in exchange for an 8% stake in her coffee company.
Since then, her specialty company based in New York City, has been sailing smoothly to revenues of Sh. 387 million in 2023.
The 36-year-old grew up in Kisii in the hands of coffee farmers before making the switch to attend college in the US in the year 2007. She studied Economics at Smith College before proceeding to Harvard for an MBA.
Nyamumbo also had the opportunity to work with American multinational bank Citigroup in 2016.
Speaking in a past CNBC interview, she narrated how she founded the company in 2017, named it after the Swahili name of Coffee and the first year Coffee was commercially grown in Kenya.
Kahawa 1893 started as a side hustle to supplement her investment banking job. The Citi job was very demanding and Nyamumbo shared that she chose to take a 1-year sabbatical to focus on her company.
She never returned and in 2018, she quit the investment banking role to turn her side hustle into a full-time job.
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“The first year was fully self-funded from my savings and reinvesting the profits that we got. We did not raise any money or debt for the year,” Nyamumbo said.
“I learned how different brands had been started and realised even Fortune 500 companies that are household names at one point had very humble beginnings. Coffee to me was a natural match because I had the experience of growing up on the farm,” she continued.
Kahawa 1893 gets its coffee from women farmers in Africa, Kenya primarily but they have otherwise taken root in Tanzania, Rwanda and DRC too. The coffee is then roasted and packaged.
When Covid-19 hit the country in 2020, Nyamumbo’s brainchild was struggling. American retail store chain Trader Joe’s came to the rescue and provided the lifeline for Kahawa 1893 by having them stock their outlets.
“That was the first time we needed outside investment,” she said, adding that she got around $285,000 from family and friends.
The deal increased publicity for their company and soon enough, other American retailers such as Target approached Kahawa 1893’s stock to stock their shops.
In 2023, the company raked in Sh. 387 million in revenues. The bulk of this came from supermarkets and wholesale distributors, bringing in Sh. 282 million.
Their website sales added Sh. 101.6 million, while Amazon contributed Sh. 13.8 million. Smaller wholesale stores like cafes and offices chipped in with Sh. 3.76 million.