The Rootical Times Edition #6
Welcome to the 6th edition of the Rootical Times, our living record of the people and ventures reshaping food systems across Uganda. This edition reflects a year of deep work inside the Rootical ecosystem, where founders moved closer to farmers, ideas met reality, and leadership took shape.
Rootical Founders In Residence 2025 with the Rootical Team during Agricultural week celebration
🌱At Rootical Uganda, change begins when founders unite around regenerative agri-food ventures. It grows through iteration, learning and validation. And it becomes real when collaboration turns purpose into profitable, farmer-centric businesses.
🌱In 2025, Rootical brought together 50 ambitious founders, supported 16 through the full Systematic Venture Building (SVB) journey, and welcomed 8 into the Rootical Studio.
These founders have passion to build businesses, restore ecosystems, strengthen farmer livelihoods, and redefine what purpose-driven leadership looks like in practice.
“It’s fascinating to see how far the regenerative business models have come in only 6 months of testing and validating. Several businesses recorded first sales and customers!”- Abu Musuuza, Rootical Uganda Director
From Bootcamp to Founders-in-Residence
🤝The year began with our second founder bootcamp, that brought together like minded do-ers to connect, bring their curiosity, and co-create a deeper, shared understanding of Uganda’s food system challenges.
Through intense working sessions, honest conversations with each other and the Rootical team, fun and games, the entrepreneurs were pushed to listen to customers, and broaden their thinking.
2025 Founders in Residence alongside The Rootical Team during one of the Sprints in the Systematic Venture Building
🚀From this process, 25 founders were selected to continue into the Systemic Venture Building (SVB) journey. This decision was not about ability, but about focus, readiness, and the depth of problem-founder fit. Some founders stepped back due to personal circumstances, while others leaned in fully.
“Watching these founders evolve from ideas into action is inspiring. They listen, adapt, and build solutions that truly belong to the people they serve.”
— Hannes Van den Eeckhout
Ideation, Prototyping & Founder Growth
⚡Inside the SVB journey, the work intensified. Founders moved through ideation hackathons, focused sprints, and hands-on prototyping as they were guided by Isaac Muhofa, our Venture Builder.
⚡Prototypes were tested in the field, shaped by farmer feedback and lived realities.
⚡Ideas became clearer, more grounded, and more human.
⚡Rootical’s Talent Manager supported this growth through clear competency frameworks, growth plans, and tools that helped founders understand both their ventures and themselves.
One Community, Two Cohorts
🤝During this period founders from Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 came together in one space. Different build stages, shared purpose. These gatherings created room for the entrepreneurs to share experiences, honestly exchange, reflect, and connect across the Rootical journey.
🤝Three months into the 2025 SVB process, founders were actively shaping 21 business ideas, each grounded in real customer feedback and field learning, spanning soil health, organic inputs, livestock, transition finance, value addition, storage, marketing, regenerative ingredients and nutrition.
🤝Beyond tools, emphasis remained on founder mindset, identity, and culture. Through founder wellness sessions and HR bootstrapping, founders reflected on leadership, failure, risk, and resilience, guided closely by Ruth Ndwiga, Talent Manager. The result was not just stronger ventures, but stronger people.
Learning from Those Who’ve Walked the Path
💡As part of the design sprints, founders visited Vermipro Limited, one of Uganda’s leading biological solutions companies. Guided by Moses Oburu, General Manager, founders explored how biofertilizers, microorganisms, probiotics, and organic crop protection products are developed and scaled.
Moses spoke openly about Vermipro’s journey from a successful vermiculture project to a viable enterprise, the regulatory challenges faced by biological products, and the central role of soil health in resilient farming systems.
“When the soil is healthy, the plant can withstand much more,” he shared. “Biopesticides work best when they complement strong agroecological practices.”
For founders, the visit reinforced a core lesson: regeneration is built step by step, from the soil up and that every huge entity once started small.
💡In reflective dialogue sessions during the sprints , founders also explored the human side of venture building. IOTEC Co-founder Kenneth Kwesiga unpacked the realities of teamwork, highlighting the importance of aligned values, shared ownership, and consistent follow-through.
💡Adding a long-term perspective, Mugisha Tonny of EITON Capital challenged founders to rethink wealth beyond finances, underscoring the value of human, intellectual, and ethical assets in building resilient, generational ventures.
💡Together, these engagements affirmed Rootical’s belief that regenerative ventures are driven by self-aware leaders who grow people alongside products.
Bold Women Rooted Growth: Creating Space for Women to Lead
🧩For Cohort 2 female founders, the Girls for Girls (G4G) mentorship program created a safe and empowering space to grow. Through six dedicated sessions, bi-weekly meetings, and follow-up mentorship, the female founders addressed confidence, leadership, balance, and imposter syndrome.
🧩Joined by Diana Ninsiima Kibuuka, G4G Country Team Lead and National Director of BNI Uganda, the sessions encouraged women to lead fully, without shrinking.
“These sessions spoke to every part of my journey, not just as a businesswoman, but as a whole person,” shared Joan Anyait
Female Founders In Residence graduate with certificates from the Girls 4 Girls mentorship class 2025 along side our Talent Manager Ruth Ndwiga and mentors from the programme.
Looking Ahead
✨16 Founders completed the Systemic Venture Building journey, demonstrating resilience, adaptability, and a deep connection to the communities they serve. The graduation was not the end; only the beginning of a long and bumpy founder journey ahead..
✨This 6th edition of The Rootical Times captures the inner work, learning, and grounding that shaped Rootical’s founders. But the journey does not stop here.
Edition 7 will spotlight how ideas are turning into real-world impact, including:
Ventures moving from pilots to real market traction,
Cohort 1 businesses scaling impact across Uganda, and
groundbreaking regional milestones, including new partnerships and ecosystem expansion.
