Business Development Services delivered by the African Management Institute (AMI) under the FIRST+II Program helped Fortüne Coffee strengthen its financial management and investment readiness. After securing a US$10,000 facility, Dr. Fortune Agbele plans to expand access to Ghanaian coffee and create more employment opportunities for young women.
For Dr. Fortune Agbele, Chief Coffee Officer of Fortüne Coffee, building a successful coffee business requires more than a passion for the product. It takes sound financial management, a clear growth strategy, and the ability to demonstrate that the business is ready for investment.
That preparation proved valuable in August 2025, when Fortüne Coffee secured a US$10,000 facility under the Growth Stage Pitch of the Tullow AgriVentures Program (TAP), Tullow Ghana’s agribusiness initiative delivered with Innohub Foundation. The business was the only coffee enterprise among the 20 agribusinesses awarded facilities.
Fortüne Coffee is one of the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) supported through the Business Development Services (BDS) component of the FIRST+II Program. Delivered by AMI as part of a consortium implemented by CapitalPlus Exchange (CapPlus), with funding from the Mastercard Foundation, the support helped Dr. Agbele strengthen her business records and present a more credible case for investment.
For her, the facility is an opportunity to grow the business while pursuing a wider ambition: making quality Ghanaian coffee more accessible and creating meaningful work opportunities for young women.
Through FIRST+II BDS support through AMI, Dr. Agbele strengthened her approach to bookkeeping and financial analysis, learning to use her business records to explain Fortüne Coffee’s performance, costs and growth potential.
The support helped her build a clearer picture of the business and communicate its prospects in a way potential investors could assess. Rather than relying on projections alone, she could draw on financial records from her day-to-day operations to support her investment pitch.
"AMI helped me turn my passion into a pitch investors could believe in. Every figure on my slides came from records I was already keeping." - Dr. Agbele, CEO of Fortüne Coffee
The strength of those records became particularly important during the award process. Before confirming the facility, the TAP team conducted an on-site due diligence exercise to verify the business’s operations and financial information.
Fortüne Coffee was able to demonstrate how its figures connected to its everyday activities. The bookkeeping and financial analysis templates provided through AMI’s support, which Dr. Agbele adapted to suit her operations, helped present a clearer and more verifiable picture of the business.
"They didn’t just hear our story; they saw it in our books. The tools I adapted from AMI showed them a business that knows itself." - Dr. Agbele, CEO of Fortüne Coffee
The experience highlights an important lesson for growing enterprises: reliable financial records do more than support internal management. They can also help business owners demonstrate their credibility and make a stronger case for investment.
For FIRST+II, Fortüne Coffee illustrates how targeted business development support can help prepare MSMEs to compete for external capital.
With the facility secured, Fortüne Coffee is preparing for its next phase of growth. A key priority is investing in a commercial coffee roaster to increase production capacity and support the business’s expansion plans.
Dr. Agbele also intends to broaden the company’s reach beyond premium cafés through a network of affordable coffee stands. The proposed outlets would serve office workers, students, and commuters, making quality coffee more accessible for everyday consumption.
"Good coffee should not be a luxury. Ghana grows coffee. Ghanaians should be able to enjoy it." - Dr. Agbele, CEO of Fortüne Coffee
The approach is designed to reach customers beyond the traditional café market while building demand for locally produced coffee. By making its products available through smaller, more accessible outlets, Fortüne Coffee hopes to encourage more people to incorporate Ghanaian coffee into their daily routines.
The expansion also presents an opportunity to create employment. Each new stand will require people to manage sales, serve customers, and oversee daily operations. Dr. Agbele plans to recruit young people for these roles, with a deliberate focus on young women.
Building on a team that includes three young women and two young men, she hopes to create further opportunities for young people to gain practical experience in customer service, cash management and business operations.
"Each stand is a small business in itself, and I want young women to be the ones running them." - Dr. Agbele, CEO of Fortüne Coffee
Through this approach, Dr. Agbele hopes to combine business expansion with practical pathways into work for young women. The number of opportunities created will depend on the rollout and growth of the coffee stands.
Dr. Agbele’s ambitions extend beyond retail expansion. She also wants to strengthen the supply chain that connects coffee farmers to consumers.
She intends to pursue formal organic certification for her network of coffee farmers in Anoe, in the Volta Region. The process would aim to strengthen the market positioning of their produce and help the supply chain work towards recognized sustainability standards.
For Fortüne Coffee, building a stronger market for locally produced coffee must go hand in hand with creating value for the people who grow it. As the business works to expand demand, Dr. Agbele hopes to improve market opportunities for her farmer network.
Her vision connects business growth with opportunities across the coffee value chain: expanding a Ghanaian coffee brand, creating employment for young people, particularly young women, and strengthening the livelihoods of local farmers.
Fortüne Coffee’s experience demonstrates how business development support can help MSMEs strengthen their capacity to attract investment beyond the direct financing provided by a program.
Through AMI’s BDS support, Dr. Agbele strengthened her bookkeeping and financial analysis practices, improved how she presented her business, and was better equipped to demonstrate its performance during due diligence. The resulting US$10,000 facility came through an external, competitive process rather than direct financing from FIRST+II.
This distinction matters. FIRST+II’s contribution was to help strengthen the business’s capacity and investment readiness, equipping it to compete for funding on its own merits.
The next phase will be about translating that investment into business growth and wider opportunities. Fortüne Coffee’s plans for affordable coffee stands could expand access to a locally produced product and create jobs for young people, especially young women. Its ambitions for the farmer network could also help strengthen market opportunities along the coffee value chain.
These aspirations align with FIRST+II’s focus on strengthening MSMEs, improving access to finance and contributing to dignified and fulfilling work for young people, particularly young women, in line with the Mastercard Foundation’s broader commitment.
Dr. Agbele’s immediate priorities are to invest in the equipment needed to increase production, advance plans for affordable coffee stands, grow sales through offices and events, and begin exploring organic certification with her farmer network in Anoe.
The facility marks an important business milestone. The next measure of progress will be what Fortüne Coffee builds with it: a stronger enterprise, a wider market for Ghanaian coffee and more opportunities for young people to participate in the value chain.
AMI taught me to keep my books, and those books earned Tullow Oil’s trust. Now we want to use that trust to bring good coffee to every corner, good jobs to young women, and better prices to our farmers. - Dr. Agbele, CEO of Fortüne Coffee
