From Entrepreneurial Potential to Real-World Impact: Mastercard Foundation Team visits KIC

For young entrepreneurs, a promising idea is only the beginning.

Building a sustainable business requires knowledge, mentorship, access to networks, appropriate financing, infrastructure, market opportunities and, often, the resilience to keep adapting when the first solution does not work as expected.

These are some of the realities that shape the work of the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC).

During a recent visit to KIC, the Mastercard Foundation Team engaged with KIC and a number of youth-led businesses supported through the Initiative for Youth in Agricultural Transformation (IYAT). The visit provided an opportunity to see how supporting entrepreneurship development can translate into businesses, jobs, innovation and wider economic participation.

In his presentation, KIC Executive Director Benjamin Gyan-Kesse highlighted KIC’s commitment to empowering young entrepreneurs to see agriculture differently—not simply as a traditional sector, but as an opportunity for innovation, technology, enterprise and social impact.

The businesses that participated in the engagement offered a practical view of what this transformation can look like.

When Support Becomes a Foundation for Growth

For Grow For Me, the KIC journey began at an early stage of its development, in 2022 when it joined the KIC incubation programme. Access to office space provided the young business with a place from which to build, while KIC’s entrepreneurship and business development support helped provide structure as the company developed its model.

Over time, the business expanded its networks, accessed financing and built a platform connecting farmers, investors and buyers.

Today, Grow For Me has reached more than 19,000 farmers across Ghana, using technology, financing, aggregation and trading to support smallholder farmers. The company is also listed by Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission as a licensed crowdfunding intermediary.

Its growth illustrates an important dimension of KIC’s approach: support for entrepreneurs is ultimately about helping them build businesses capable of creating value beyond their own organisations.

Turning Waste into Opportunity

For AgriMercarb, who also joined the KIC Incubation Program in 2022, the challenge was different.

The company is developing solutions around one of the agricultural economy’s persistent challenges: how to turn waste into something valuable.

Using black soldier fly technology, AgriMercarb transforms organic waste into products including protein-rich inputs for animal feed, organic fertiliser and other useful materials. Its current model is focused on establishing community-based production facilities and working with communities to turn organic waste into economic and agricultural value.

KIC’s support has contributed to the business development journey, including support around business management, financial reporting and record keeping.

The significance of the model goes beyond the products themselves.

By decentralising production and working with communities, AgriMercarb is exploring how agricultural innovation can also create local economic opportunities while addressing environmental challenges.

Its journey demonstrates how young entrepreneurs can use technology and locally relevant innovation to respond to problems within their own communities.

Making Urban Agriculture Possible

For Farm Estates, the challenge was how to produce fresh vegetables in an urban environment while responding to concerns around land availability, climate conditions, water use and food safety.

The company has developed an indoor vertical hydroponic farming model that uses technology and controlled environments to produce vegetables without conventional soil-based farming. Its current model combines vertical hydroponics, automation and AI-enabled monitoring to produce pesticide-free leafy greens and other vegetables.

Farm Estates joined the KIC programme in 2021 and entered KIC’s incubation programme in 2022. Today, its products are reaching supermarkets, malls and online grocery platforms, while the company continues to develop its technology and explore more sustainable approaches to energy and food production.

The journey also demonstrates another dimension of entrepreneurship: solving one problem often creates the opportunity to address another.

As Farm Estates has worked to improve freshness and shelf life, it has developed new approaches to packaging and distribution. The company has also explored smart hydroponics training, sharing its knowledge with other farmers interested in climate-controlled production.

Connecting Farmers to Finance and Markets

For LbH, the opportunity lies at the intersection of technology, finance and agriculture.

The company is building digital solutions that connect smallholder farmers with agricultural service providers, financing, inputs, agronomy support and markets.

LbH emerged from KIC’s AgriTech Challenge Pro and Business Incubation programmes. The company connects smallholder farmers with agricultural service providers through technology while also helping farmers access premium markets.

Its reach has grown significantly. LbH’s has supported more than 67,000 farmers through their platform.

More recently, LbH has expanded its approach to financial inclusion by developing a Buy Now, Pay Later model for poultry and fish farmers, providing access to feed on flexible payment terms.

The story of LbH shows how a young Ghanaian technology company can use digital infrastructure to address longstanding barriers to finance and services within agriculture.

Beyond the Business

The stories of Grow For Me, AgriMercarb, Farm Estates and LbH are different, but they share a common thread.

Each business started with an entrepreneur identifying a challenge or opportunity. Each has had to navigate uncertainty, refine its business model and build the capabilities required to grow.

KIC’s role has been to help create the conditions in which those entrepreneurs can develop.

Through entrepreneurship training, coaching, mentorship, incubation, funding, physical infrastructure, networks and ecosystem linkages, KIC works to ensure that young entrepreneurs have access to more than a single intervention.

The goal is to help them build the capabilities, relationships and businesses required to participate meaningfully in Ghana’s agricultural economy.

That is central to the Initiative for Youth in Agricultural Transformation, a partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and KIC that seeks to equip young people with opportunities for entrepreneurship, innovation and dignified work across agriculture and related sectors.

The Mastercard Foundation team’s visit therefore offered more than an opportunity to showcase successful businesses. It provided a window into what happens when young people are given the opportunity, resources and support to turn problems into solutions.

From farmers gaining access to finance and markets, to communities finding value in organic waste, to urban consumers accessing locally grown vegetables, the impact of youth entrepreneurship can extend far beyond the businesses themselves.

At KIC, the ambition is not simply to create businesses. It is to support young people to build businesses that create value, generate opportunities and contribute to a more innovative, inclusive and resilient agricultural economy.