George Gachara
George Gachara, a Kenyan arts‐finance maverick has spent the past decade turning creativity into investable capital. In 2013 he co-founded HEVA Fund, the region’s first tailored finance house for fashion labels, animation studios and live-music venues; today the Nairobi-based facility has pumped roughly KSh 1 billion into more than 100 ventures across 14 African countries through revenue-sharing loans and catalytic grants. Gachara’s deal-making helped broker Netflix’s Creative Equity Scholarship Fund, backing 46 East African film students in its inaugural year and has drawn coinvestment from governments and impact investors keen to tap the continent’s orange-economy dividend.
Beyond the term sheets, Gachara sits on UNESCO’s International Fund for the Promotion of Culture, advises the UK’s Policy and Evidence Centre, and lectures as an honorary entrepreneurship fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. His consultancy with the Mastercard Foundation is shaping youth-employment blueprints that fuse cultural enterprise with digital skills. Named to Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2023, he is now raising a blended-finance vehicle aimed at export-ready creative IP and lobbying for regional tax incentives that keep royalties onshore. Gachara’s thesis remains clear: if Kenya bets on its storytellers as boldly as on its startups, the next unicorn could carry a camera instead of code.