A serial entrepreneur, Mark has lived on four continents and built five successful companies - from the very first dotcoms in New York City to investment matchmaking in London, and then to business incubation & agricultural services in Ghana. Heavily influenced by his anthropology degree, he’s sought out frontier markets in tech, innovating early and helping shape the path for others. Mark lives between Lisbon and Salvador.
METROBEAT1995
First Online CityGuide (Co-Founder)
An early dotcom pioneer and the first ever comprehensive online city guides. Created new formats for online content and developed dynamic database2web tools. Acquired by CitySearch 1998.
First Tuesday1998
Dotcom Matchmaker (Co-Founder)
A globally franchised monthly event that linked entrepreneurs with investors (and media) at the height of the dotcom bubble. 500,000 members in 40 countries. Sold to Yazam Ventures 2001.
Busyinternet2001
Ghana Incubator & ISP (Founder)
A pioneering co-working space and incubation hub fostering startups and innovators in Accra. Mix of ISP, Cybercafe, and offices for companies with a social change agenda. Sold to Afrimax 2016.
ESoko2008
Agric SMS Services (Founder)
Providing market prices, weather forecasts, nutrition information and crop tips to farmers across Africa via SMS, voice messaging and live call centres, and implementing large-scale tablet-based rural surveys.
RACKAFRICA2012
Accra Data Centre (Co-Founder)
The first carrier-neutral Data Centre in West Africa, offering secure, robust, fully redundant Tier3 data housing and colocation services. Sold to PAIX 2017.
BUSYWORKS2023
Impact Investing
Equity and debt investments in strategic, small-scale frontier market innovators and accelerator programs. View...
KIPLING PRESS1991
Author
Authored five books for young adults including a biography of Malcolm X, an edition of the Brer Rabbit stories, Copper the Cat, and Inside the Airport. View...