And here comes Tanzania’s newest billionaire

Dar es Salaam. At 35 years, Andron Mendes has become Tanzania’s latest billionaire with a big dream to change the lives of millions of people in Africa.

On Monday, he flew Tanzania’s flag high – landing $25m (Sh57.5 billion) price for his clean energy innovation that is only six years old in the market.  

Mr Mendes and his Mexican partner Dr Sebastian Rodriguez sold KopaGas, a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) cooking gas services technology to United Kingdom’s Circle Gas. The deal was touted as the largest ever pure private equity investment in the clean cooking technology sector.    

“I am delighted how far we have come and equally exuberant that our technology is going to be revolutionary and help to protect the environment,” Mr Mendes told The Citizen in an interview yesterday.  

Asked how he felt being a billionaire, he said; “That is a lot of money, I couldn’t believe it but the greatest thing was to see a local technology is trusted by big corporates such as Safaricom which is very special.”

Mr Mendes said his decision to quit his insurance job has been vindicated. “No one understood my decision to quit my blue-collar job but today they are congratulating me. The lesson her is everything is possible if you believe in yourself,” he said.

According to the agreement, Circle Gas will gain access to the KopaGas proprietary technology and advance its manufacturing ready for expansion in the LPG markets in Africa where up to 900 million targeted consumers could be reached.

The catch for KopaGas was in its deployment of the mobile phone to allow consumers buy and use the amount of gas that their little money could afford. It is more like Tanesco’s LUKU system where electricity consumers can use their mobile phones to buy tokens to access the service. Circle Gas said it will now advance the Tanzanian technology through the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and software to allow users on M-Pesa platforms to access the service while it captures granular usage and pay information.

On Monday, Kenya’s Safaricom entered an agreement with Circle Gas to immediately start distributing the technology in the country with the plan to open other markets in the near future. Reports indicate that Circle Gas will invest up to $300 million in the expansion plan.

Mr Mendes and Rodriguez were in Nairobi to witness the monumental leap in their lives and also the vision for their business. The Tanzanian said he met his colleague a few years ago at several forum where he was promoting his innovation and he readily joined him in looking for sponsors and possible partners in foreign markets, including in the Far East.

Besides the buy-off price, the two KopaGas founders will retain 15 percent share holding in Circle Gas and also remain key executives in the new company, it was revealed. Yesterday Mendes told The Citizen they will re-invest part of the Sh57.5bn in the new venture. “We will also be retaining all our 30 employees in Tanzania to the new company,” he said.

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