Lyndsay Handler, a climate tech investor, prioritizes female entrepreneurs

By: WE Staff | Monday, 1 May 2023

Lyndsay Handler takes great pride in two aspects of her life: the businesses she built and the communities she helped to grow. She moved to East Africa in 2003 and is the managing partner and co-founder of Delta40. Over the next 20 years, she created businesses in Fintech, sustainable energy, and agriculture.

Since 2022, she has served as managing partner of the venture studio Delta40, which invests in "disruptive innovations" developed by African founders to boost incomes and address climate change in the continent.

Its main investment areas, which are sometimes referred to as climate change, are agriculture, energy, and mobility. The company wants to raise $30 million (Sh3.9 billion) over the following five years by primarily focusing on female founders.

The studio's first business efforts were in agriculture. For both their livelihood and food security, the bulk of Africans depend on agriculture. Only because they could earn more money, which in some way strengthened their resilience, were they able to invest in other areas.

The subjects of the research in the studio are novel seed treatments that boost germination rates and are more drought tolerant in low rainfall locations. When the proper technique is applied, the costs of these innovations are rather modest. According to Lyndsay, contrary to popular assumption, East Africans are among the world's most entrepreneurial people. The African market is booming if the correct goods can be found.

She continued by saying that young people who want to learn and change the world have a lot of abilities and that there is a big chance if you can develop the ideal and game-changing product.