Business Advisory Start-Up Cactus Advisors Aims To Assist Companies Achieve Growth And Success
Business Advisory Start-Up Cactus Advisors Aims Assist Companies To Achieve Growth And Success. Cactus Advisors is a pan-Africa focused, multi-disciplinary business advisory firm that helps owners and management of companies achieve growth and performance through clear strategic thought (operations and management) and financial acumen such as capital raising, mergers & acquisitions and divestitures.
Cactus Capital is the micro VC fund arm of Cactus Advisors that specialises in investing in high-growth, high-impact early stage African tech ventures. Cactus Advisors was founded in 2013 by Zachariah George, who is also the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startupbootcamp Africa – the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa. Since 2015, Cactus Capital has invested in 18 of Africa’s leading tech startups including Flutterwave, HouseME, Recomed and several others.
In 2015, Cactus Advisors created, developed and managed the first ever corporate tech accelerator program in Africa – the Barclays Tech Lab Africa accelerator program designed to discover, nurture and empower the next generation of technology innovators, and subsequently managed the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s incubator and accelerator program. Zach has advised numerous African start-ups and businesses since 2010 and is an Angel Investor in several of Africa’s most successful tech startups. He was featured on the cover of Fast Company South Africa in May 2018.
Since August 2011, Zach has been based in Cape Town. In 2014, Zach was recognised as a Certified Business Adviser at the Institute of Business Advisers for Business Advising Excellence and is a member of the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa. He is a mentor for High Impact Endeavor entrepreneurs and has been featured on CNBC Africa on several occasions as well as on Disrupt Africa, Cliff Central, Entrepreneur Magazine and Silicon Cape.
Prior to moving to South Africa, he was an investment banker on Wall Street covering mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance strategy and risk management at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, New York. In May 2010, he voluntarily left the global financial sector and moved to Africa where he spent a year consulting to micro-finance organisations and impact-driven venture capital enterprises, including a 6-month stint as a Professor of Finance for an award-winning Social Entrepreneurship MBA program in Nairobi.
