The Path that Led to Founding Matanataki and Launching Our Impact 1 Fund
Named for the iTaukei word for action, Matanataki raises impact investment and climate finance for Pacific businesses whose practices can turn around our region's environmental problems.
JANUARY 18TH, 2024 | BY JODI SMITH, CEO, MATANATAKI | GP, MATANATAKI IMPACT 1
I remember combing the beaches along the Coral Coast for shells and driftwood as an eight-year-old on school holidays visiting Fiji from New Zealand where I was born. My mother was from Fiji, we would visit regularly, and as a young girl I had no idea Fiji would end up being my home, that thirty years later I would be building climate resilient businesses and bringing investment to them, or that I would walk the same beaches but now picking up nappies, sanitary pads and plastic bottles.
I am a business management specialist and I manage companies in distress. In 2012 I was asked to turn around an agriculture business in Fiji. My job was to impart business management skills and knowledge, and lead the company to profitably through teaching a local team new systems, however I would argue that during my five year tenure it was me who was the student. I previously had no hands on understanding about the impact that humans are having on the planet – the farm is located adjacent to the ocean with a network of tidal drains – and my learning curve was steep as I was tasked with creating a profitable business quickly on land which was degraded from decades of synthetic fertiliser use and poor land management. Buying organic inputs and applying them was simply not enough, especially when after their first application, 24 hours of tropical rain saw our expensive fertilisers wash into the drains overnight. With no prior agriculture experience I had to learn how to farm in a regenerative way. As a foreigner leading a disbelieving local team who had not worked under a woman before, I had to build trust as they all wondered who on earth this crazy lady was throwing away their trusted chemical fertilisers. I also learned first hand about the devastating impact of those fertilisers washing into the ocean (organic fertilisers can have negative effects too), and when I went outside of the farm to source from small holder farmers, I discovered how competition – local and global – was forcing small holder farmers to farm in ways which are not only destructive to the environment but also to their own health. The odds were stacked against me in so many ways, but as I re-shaped the team (comprised mostly of women) and we began to trust each other, we started to realise the fruits of our human stewardship – life coming back to the soil, fish returning to the near shore, improved yields, birds of prey visiting the farm the day we were declared organic certified, and a business that was making money. We eventually went on to win a major international award for good agricultural practice.
After completing the turn around I wasn’t ready to leave Fiji. I dedicated the next few years to finding out what was preventing small holder fishers and farmers from getting quality products, value added where possible, to local and international markets; how to shorten and bring efficiencies to supply chains; and how people could earn a decent and fair wage, which could enable them to afford basic, yet fundamentally important needs like strong houses. This lead to perhaps my most significant discovery – that fishers and farmers are still producing goods in much the same way they were when my great, great grandfather first arrived in Fiji from China over 160 years ago, and they can’t compete with larger developing countries in a global market place. This, I believe, is a fundamental question to solve: how can so-called developing world people can earn a fair living from primary resources in a global economy which disregards ecology and humans which are part of that ecology?
This challenge is what Matanataki, the company I founded, is dedicated to solving through the lens of what I know – business development, management and turn around. Though we do this at a practical, microeconomic business level, Fiji offers an exciting microcosm in which to find solutions to systemic problems. Its economy is small yet vibrant, and changes at the micro level can be observed relatively quickly at the macro level, providing proof of concept of how systems changes could be devised and implemented in larger nations.
Through my work at the farm I became know as the “organic lady” in Fiji, and I was asked in 2017 to sit on an NGO steering committee tasked with bringing resilience to Fiji’s reefscape. It was an advisor to the committee from Europe who told me that there was significant climate and environmental finance coming available, and that I should develop investment opportunities, “deal flow” or “pipeline” as it is known in the investment world. And so I took a risk, and unfinanced, started to do this. In 2020 I was contacted by the UN’s multi partner trust fund office. They were putting together a fund for SDG14, the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), and they asked if my colleagues and I could pitch our most promising deals to their Executive Board. I remember our pitch being starkly different to those presented by other countries: they showed happy, smiling people and happy, healthy reefs, and we showed images of…. burning coastal dumpsites. The Board was silent at the end of our presentation and I was sure we had blown it. But fortunately I was wrong, and Fiji was selected as the first of four countries to develop deal flow for the GFCR. Consequently the last three years have been an incredibly rewarding experience working with entrepreneurs in the waste, agriculture, fisheries and tourism sectors to imagine collectively what our country could look like if we take action and realise our collective vision as actors in the private sector, with investment opportunities ready to go. I named my company Matanataki, after the Vosa Vakaviti word for action, for this reason – we’ve all done enough talking, it’s time to act.
Now that we have 10 investment ready companies in our pipeline, have closed one direct investment, and made three investments ourselves, the next logical step for Matanataki is to raise an investment fund. This will enable us to mobilise the much needed long-term risk capital the companies need, and for our team to provide hands on investment change management
The Financing Opportunity
Through our experience we have discovered that existing models of financial deployment (such as certain types of investment from the Global North, and intergovernmental and NGO models) are not suitable for Fijian businesses. Investments from the Global North are typically hands off and don’t support the rapid change faced by business owners when they grow their companies after receiving investment. On the other hand, intergovernmental and NGO project models do not focus on creating markets and businesses which deliver environmental outcomes supported by long term revenues. Adding to this, Fiji lacks broad scale institutional, production and technological capabilities.
The Solution
Matanataki Impact 1 fund, which will deliver tailored financial instruments and technical support to reef-positive businesses across waste management, fisheries, agriculture and tourism, is currently being raised.
This hybrid finance solution will bring risk capital to the Pacific, working to accelerate our region’s transition to regenerative production in order to save our globally important reefs, and provide post-investment support to entrepreneurs and their management teams to support them to navigate the increased complexities of doing business as they grow. Watch this space for further details.
A number of exciting investment opportunities have been identified and developed in Fiji to support healthier reef ecosystems.
Some examples include Yavahuna Cooperative, a community-run business that collects and dries sargassum, an seaweed that’s choking Fijian beaches and reefs. Yavahuna sells the dried sargassum to The Fertile Factory Co, which turns it into organic fertiliser for the agricultural industry, replacing harmful chemical fertilisers that are poisoning Fijian reefs.
Vulavula Sara Pte Ltd is a modern waste management company encompassing a modern landfill, recycling hub, transfer stations and transport network while Vulavula Sara Reef Trust is a Fiji-wide dumpsite rehabilitation project, ensuring the closure and remediation of legacy dumpsites. Old dumpsites in Ba, Labasa, Lautoka, Ovalau, Rakiraki, Savusavu, Sigatoka and Rotuma need to be closed and remediated to deliver positive impact for the reefs. Vulavula Sara and its sister Reef Trust are designed to safely dispose of up to 43% of Fiji’s current total waste, alleviating contaminants from Fijian beaches and reefs.
Together these and other Fijian businesses will help solve complex, interrelated environmental problems while contributing to the economic development of the country.
With a strong local presence, extensive networks, and a profound understanding of the Fijian context gained through years of on-the-ground experience, Matanataki has the necessary international investment management and business development know-how to help restore Fijian reefs.
By working hand in hand with entrepreneurs to come up with local solutions, we are mobilising industry and communities to prioritise environmental health and supporting them with the brightest minds and best knowledge to do so.
Jodi is the Director and CEO of Matanataki, a Fijian-owned and women-led business development and investment management company that works in partnership with entrepreneurs and investors in the waste, agriculture, fisheries, and tourism sectors to create positive change for Fiji’s people, land and reefs.
She is a descendant of the first Chinese family in Fiji who arrived in the country in 1883. Following in the footsteps of her ancestors, who owned Fiji’s first general store and traded yasi (sandalwood) and beche-de-mer, she entered the private sector as a business development and turn around specialist. She has developed, turned around and operated businesses in the Global South across sectors as diverse as oil and gas, agriculture and tourism, creating market access and the right products and services that are appropriate for the market.