When Investors Can’t Get to the Farm: What Happened When We Put a Kenyan Agribusiness in Virtual Reality

A 360° virtual field trip of a Kenyan agribusiness was tested with impact investors to see whether immersive context could accelerate due diligence when site visits aren't feasible.

VR project Screenshot of female factory workers at Nyota Limited (Albacoxe Productions, 2024.)

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Editor's Introduction

Most XR-for-impact work lives in the realm of empathy and awareness: humanitarian documentaries, climate visualizations, cultural experiences. This study asks a different question entirely: can immersive media help move money? Langa and her colleagues built a 360° virtual field trip of Nyota Limited, a women-led Kenyan agribusiness, and put it in front of impact investors who would normally need twelve to eighteen months and expensive site visits to complete due diligence. What they found is nuanced. Investors valued the contextual grounding (being able to see the product’s life cycle from the factory floor to the  supermarket shelf) but were clear-eyed about limits. VR didn't replace financial modeling; it reduced what one investor called "imagination risk," the conservative assumptions that fill in when decision-makers have never set foot on the ground. By revealing the name and the face behind the business, it also helped humanize the investment process. The piece also raises questions about who gets to be represented immersively when production costs remain high, and whether neutral third-party production is essential to maintaining investor trust.

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The Problem: Capital Moves Slowly When Context Is Missing

Florence Mogere stands outside her factory in Kikuyu watching women in hairnets and colorful traditional khangas (Kenyan cotton garment) sort fresh local vegetables - managu, terere, sagaa and kunde. A few kilometres away, smallholder farmers prepare vegetables harvested at dawn. The cold room hums as Samuel, a driver in distribution makes room for the new stock. Labels are printed. Orders are packed for supermarket delivery.

Florence is the founder and CEO of Nyota Limited, a Kenyan agribusiness trading under the brand Frozen Isle. Her company sources vegetables from smallholder farmers, many of them women - processes, freezes and sells them to urban consumers.

She has built a climate-conscious, women-led value chain connecting rural producers to city markets.

Figure 1 Florence Mogere, CEO of Nyota Limited. (IWMI, 2024.)

Figure 2 Screenshot of Florence's interview in front of her factory. In the VR experience chronicled in this story, hotspots lead to pop-up videos such as this one explaining more about Frozen Isle's production process. (Albacoxe Productions, 2024.)

Figure 3 VR project Screenshot of female factory workers at Nyota Limited. (Albacoxe Productions, 2024.)

And yet, when foreign impact investors show interest, the process stalls.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan economy, providing livelihood to approximately 75% of the population (Njora & Hasan, 2021). The role of smallholders in Kenya's agriculture has grown significantly, now contributing around 60% of the country's marketed agricultural production (Nyoro, 2002). Kenya is also one of Africa’s leading destinations for impact investment, attracting nearly half of East Africa’s social impact capital (GIIN, 2015; GSG, 2019). Yet despite this apparent alignment between agricultural importance and investor interest, foreign direct investment into small-scale agribusiness remains uneven and slow. One structural reason is due diligence.

Foreign impact investors often require 12–18 months to complete evaluation processes (Feldberga & Dick, 2021; GSG, 2019). Site visits to rural operations are expensive. Investment committees are geographically dispersed. Members reviewing final decisions may never have visited Kenya.

As one investor in this study put it: “When the committee hasn’t seen it themselves, they assume more risk. That’s human.”

Distance increases uncertainty and uncertainty slows capital.

So we asked a simple question: If impact investors struggle to reach rural agribusinesses physically, can virtual reality accelerate evaluation in the due diligence process?

A Brief Look at VR in Finance: An Emerging but Sparse Field

Virtual Reality (VR) has gained traction across sectors including education, tourism, healthcare, and entertainment (Slater & Sanchez-Vives, 2016). However, its integration into finance remains limited.

Bonelli and Hamelin (2022) note that business-oriented VR applications represent roughly 5% of overall VR revenue, with financial-sector use accounting for approximately 1%. Existing research focuses primarily on: VR trading simulations (Bonelli & Hamelin, 2022); accounting education (Yaşar, 2022; Ratmono et al., 2024); virtual environments for accounting training (Al-Gnbri, 2022; Egiyi, 2022); blockchain and immersive interfaces (Cannavo & Lamberti, 2020) and e-commerce visualisation (Toasa et al., 2024).

These applications enhance user engagement or training but rarely influence capital allocation decisions directly. The most relevant study for investment evaluation is Feldberga & Dick (2021), who argue that VR and Augmented Reality (AR) can attract foreign direct investment. They argue that AR and VR solutions could increase foreign investment attraction by offering virtual site tours, facilitating knowledge exchange while reducing travel needs, accelerating shortlisting timelines for agribusinesses seeking capital, and broadening reach while reducing time and cost during evaluation periods. Their research examines VR as a country-level promotion tool, showing how governments can use immersive technologies to showcase infrastructure and innovation ecosystems. They emphasise that VR can supplement in-person meetings but does not replace them. Importantly, they highlight barriers including: lack of awareness, infrastructure limitations, device access, governance and regulatory gaps.

However, even Feldberga & Dick (2021) do not examine VR’s role within venture-level impact investment due diligence. Thus, while VR in finance is discussed conceptually, empirical evidence regarding its influence on real investment decision-making especially in African contexts remains scarce.

The inclusion of VR into traditional pitch decks often does not come to mind for the average agribusiness to support impact investment evaluation engagements. Visual storytelling is typically integrated through static images.

Our VR pilot production began when the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator program initiated its engagement with Nyota Limited by launching a call for applications on November 27, 2023, focusing on agribusinesses in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. A prerequisite for participation was a clear and inclusive strategy for smallholder farmers, women, and youth within the business model, addressing at least one of the following dimensions: ownership, management team, workforce and policies, supply chain, and customers.

Following a rigorous selection process that began with a call for applications, involving diverse judges, thirty agribusinesses were chosen for rating, and fifteen for interviews. Nyota Limited distinguished itself through its proactive initiatives with farmers and its status as a woman-founded agribusiness. Researchers approached Florence on the possibility of developing a VR experience for her agribusiness and without hesitation, it was all systems go!

VR in the Wider XR-for-Impact Landscape

While the use of VR in finance remains limited, immersive media has gained substantial traction in the broader field of social impact communication. To situate the Nyota Limited VR project, it is important to examine how VR has been deployed in humanitarian advocacy, environmental storytelling, and location-based entertainment and how investment evaluation differs from these applications.

Humanitarian organizations were among the earliest adopters of VR for public communication. The United Nations’ Clouds Over Sidra (Arora & Pousman, 2015) marked a watershed moment, positioning VR as a tool for fostering empathy toward Syrian refugees. As Irom (2018) explains, immersive VR was embraced within humanitarian communication because it appeared to intensify experiential immediacy bringing distant suffering into perceptual proximity.

Subsequent scholarship complicates these claims. Gruenewald and Witteborn (2022) argue that humanitarian VR operates as a “technique” for cultivating emotional styles particularly empathy through structured narrative scripts of suffering and hope. Rather than offering unmediated access, VR remains shaped by representational choices and ideological framing. Gorin (2022) further critiques the assumption that immersion equals ethical engagement. She situates VR within a longer visual history of immersive spectacle and argues that humanitarian VR often mobilises emotion - sometimes even shame without necessarily deepening structural understanding. The illusion of “being there” does not dissolve mediation; it reconfigures it.

More recent experimental research complicates the “empathy machine” narrative. Borah et al. (2024) found that while VR can increase sympathy and, under certain conditions, donation intention, empathy effects are inconsistent and moderated by political ideology. In some cases, VR increases sympathy more reliably than empathy itself.

These findings are critical for understanding the Nyota Limited  VR project. Unlike humanitarian VR, which seeks to mobilize emotional solidarity or donations, the VR project was designed explicitly as an evaluation tool not activism, not fundraising spectacle, and not an empathy performance. Its purpose is not to elicit pity but to reduce informational asymmetry in investment decision-making.

In response to the question, “Why is the VR project being developed, and what story would you like to tell?,” a CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator project lead wrote in his concept note which outlines the project’s objectives, logistics and outcomes:

We would like viewers to understand how value addition really happens within locally successful agribusinesses in East and Southern Africa. We would also like investors to understand how many problems Nyota has solved and continues to solve, and why it is worthy of investment to scale.

Environmental VR experiences similarly aim to make abstract crises tangible. Immersive climate storytelling frequently places users inside threatened ecosystems to generate affective awareness. A recent example of immersive environmental storytelling by Xuan et al. (2025), Meltdown, a VR escape-room simulation is designed to bridge what the authors call the “perception gap” between everyday food choices and long-term climate consequences. Developed for university students in Singapore, the experience places users inside a virtual supermarket and kitchen, where they must make decisions about packaging, sourcing, and food waste disposal.

Unlike abstract climate visualizations of melting glaciers or rising sea levels, Meltdown situates environmental impact within a familiar consumer setting. The designers combine interactive decision-making with immediate narrative feedback and unsustainable choices trigger a “Disaster Room” sequence that visually and narratively communicates environmental consequences. In a study of 36 participants, the authors report statistically significant improvements in sustainability knowledge, confidence, and behavioral intention following the immersive experience. This example illustrates how environmental VR increasingly focuses on experiential behavioral education rather than passive awareness. However, like other climate-oriented immersive projects, its primary aim is attitudinal and behavioral change not formal evaluation or decision-making under financial risk.

The Nyota Limited VR project differs in intention and structure. While environmental VR often seeks behavioral change through emotional activation, the VR project seeks analytical clarity. It does not attempt to dramatize scarcity or crisis; rather, it documents operational flow farm inputs, processing systems, logistics chains, and workforce organisation. Its aim is not affective urgency but contextual grounding.

Location-Based Entertainment (LBE) provides another instructive comparison. LBE merges physical and digital spaces to create immersive experiences, often in commercial or cultural settings. Popular infrastructure examples include The Void, Zero Latency, and VR Zone (Shan & Corporal, 2020). Fischer (2010) describes location-based games as linking “material and media-space” through geospatial technologies, enabling new forms of spatial engagement.  An example is GPS-Mission, a treasure hunt game with several missions worldwide adapted to a specific urban environment with features such as verification check points, mission recordings for review and gold as a reward currency (Fischer, 2010).

Similarly, Shan and Corporal (2020) analyse the rise of VR LBE in China, emphasizing the importance of sustainability, production infrastructure, and professional capacity in immersive content ecosystems. Their analysis highlights that immersion alone does not generate value; structured narrative design and viable business models are essential.

These insights are highly relevant to the Nyota Limited VR project. Like LBE environments, the VR project required careful spatial sequencing, narrative layering, and attention management. Immersion had to be guided. Users needed intuitive movement, clear hotspots, and purposeful progression from farm to processing facility to retail shelf. However, unlike LBE, which prioritises spectacle and entertainment value, the VR project prioritises credibility and clarity. There are no gamified rewards, no dramatic arcs engineered for thrill. The design constraint was informational utility.

Across humanitarian VR, environmental storytelling, and LBE, immersion is often framed as transformative. Yet the literature consistently warns against technological determinism. As Gorin (2022) notes, immersive technologies build upon long-standing traditions of illusion and spectacle. Presence does not eliminate mediation.

The Nyota Limited VR project therefore occupies a distinct position within the XR-for-impact ecosystem. It does not aim to produce emotional catharsis, nor to aestheticise vulnerability, nor to entertain. It functions as an evaluation tool embedded within investment due diligence. For Florence, this VR project offers an innovative and engaging tool to present her agribusiness, novel from the traditional pitch deck formats typically used. It could broaden her exposure to a wider network of foreign impact investors, enhance her visibility and improve her business communication strategy. It could invite potential investors into her operations even before she has.

Where humanitarian VR asks, “Can you feel what it is like?” The VR project asks, “Can you see how this works?”

This shift from empathy activation to contextual verification marks the conceptual contribution of this project within the broader XR landscape.

The Experiment: Building the VR Project

Then the hard work began. Moving from concept to product. Managing regular virtual production meetings on Teams, weekly edit reviews with screen-sharing of edit still in the software, and never ending VR headset compatibility tests around the team's busy schedules. There were frequent and urgent requests for Florence to share evidence of community impact, capacity building and women empowerment. We needed the numbers. The pressure was on to tell Nyota Limited’s story and make the case for why it stood out from the rest. Once a concept note was completed in June 2024, the team was fully committed. The VR project was tested with investors in January 2025 and in February 2026 research communication began.

The VR project was co-designed with Florence Mogere and produced using 360° capture, external lapel microphones, and 3DVista software. Scenes were filmed at three sites: smallholder farm, processing factory, and supermarket. The final experience included interactive hotspots, embedded interviews, sales data visualisation, offline capability and VR headset compatibility illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4 The final experience included interactive hotspots, embedded interviews, sales data visualisation, offline capability and VR headset compatibility as illustrated in this image. (Albacoxe Production, 2024).

The process unfolded in four phases:

1. Pre-Production

This included: co-creation of a concept note with Florence; storyboarding the value chain journey; identifying key scenes: farm, factory, supermarket and confirming film locations. Our driving question throughout this phase was: What would an investor want to see in a site visit?

2. Production

Using an Insta360 X4 camera, we filmed: farms, processing lines, worker interactions and retail placement. We captured ambient sound to preserve authenticity. Interviews were recorded with external microphones.

During the recording of the farm scenes with Rahab, a local farmer supplying Nyota Limited, she felt most comfortable expressing herself in Swahili, which also helped preserve the authenticity of the environment we were working in. Translation support from local community members ensured clarity and was incorporated through subtitling in the final edit.

Figure 5 Screenshot of Rahab’s interview in Swahili. (Albacoxe Productions, 2024)

The goal was realism, not polish.

3. Post-Production

Post-production was an iterative process informed by Kenya’s existing technology landscape and ecosystems as well as investor feedback. Kenya is often called the “Silicon Savannah” due to fintech innovations like M-Pesa, a mobile money service. Smartphone penetration sits at 72,6% (Communications Authority of Kenya, 2024). However, internet penetration is approximately 65% (Jalang’o Anyango et al., 2022); mobile data subscriptions hovers around 58,1% (Communications Authority of Kenya, 2024); computer use proposition per individual is 11,6 %  and only 7,3% in rural areas (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2024); and VR headset distribution is minimal with no official data available.

These realities shaped design decisions. The VR project had to function on mobile, load efficiently on moderate bandwidth and headset immersion was optional, not mandatory. Even Florence or anyone on her team did not own a VR headset. Thus, infrastructure constraints shaped immersive adoption. The final VR project incorporated multiple interactive features, including detailed project information outlining Nyota Limited’s mission, location, contact details, and six months of sales data presented through clear visualisations. Users could click the company logo to access the website and navigate scenes non-linearly using dropdown menus. The experience was fully functional across desktop, mobile, and VR headset platforms, with adjustable audio settings and offline capabilities after download to enhance usability and accessibility.

Figure 6 Desktop screenshot of Nyota Limited VR project portioning scene. Note the access to project info, sales data and drop-down navigation(Albacoxe Productions, 2024.)

4. Dissemination

The VR project was hosted online accessible via web browser, mobile device and VR headset. A url allowed easy sharing.

Importantly, this meant: Investors could revisit scenes asynchronously. Unlike a physical site visit, the experience was repeatable. Florence was active in the post-production review meetings and eager to hear impact investor feedback. Upon further review and investor feedback, the scope of the project expanded and we recognised that the moderate inclusion of financial data within the comfort level and ethical boundaries set by Florence and her team would strengthen the overall use case for this VR project. We initially conceptualised fixed, static graphs displaying six-month periods of sales data, with the idea of eventually enhancing them to incorporate near-real-time animated sales figures. She was equally proactive in providing additional materials to us to improve the VR project as the feedback poured in and curious about how it could be integrated into her upcoming investor engagements.

Figure 7 VR project poster. (Source: IWMI, 2024)

The Study: How We Tested It

A total of 10 Kenyan-operating impact investors with experience evaluating agribusinesses were initially approached, and interviews were successfully conducted with 6 individuals, resulting in a 60% response rate. All participants held mid-to-senior level roles in their respective organizations to ensure that perspectives reflected multiple layers of the investment decision-making hierarchy.

Although the sample size was small, the study prioritized depth of insight over breadth. After 6 interviews, investors were consistently raising the same concerns and observations, suggesting we had captured the range of perspectives. Each session followed this structure:

1. Desktop walkthrough

2. VR headset immersion

3. 45–60 minute semi-structured interview

   
   

We asked 14 questions that included:

• Where would this fit in your evaluation process?

• Would it influence your funding decision?

• What concerns do you have?

• How could it be improved?

All interviews were recorded and transcribed.

How We Analysed the Responses

We used a thematic analysis approach combining:

• Deductive coding, based on Agrawal & Jespersen’s (2024) four-stage investment evaluation model: Context, Investment Focus, Venture Analysis and Decision.

• Inductive coding, allowing new themes to emerge such as:

  • Trust and neutrality

  • Cost and scalability

  • Geographic reach

What Investors Actually Said – Results

To better understand how VR influenced investor perceptions, investor reactions are presented in relation to key scenes within the VR project. The experience follows Nyota Limited’s value chain from farm to factory to retail, allowing viewers to observe agricultural sourcing, processing operations, distribution logistics, and product placement in supermarkets. Connecting investor responses to these scenes highlights how specific elements of the immersive environment shaped investor understanding of the business and influenced how they evaluated its operations, impact, and potential as an investment opportunity.

Across all six interviews, investors were strikingly consistent about one point: the strongest value of the VR project lies in the contextual stage of the investment process. Before financial modelling, before term sheets, and before legal negotiations, there is a more basic hurdle understanding what the business actually looks and feels like on the ground.

Farm Context: Reducing Imagination Risk

The VR experience begins at the pre-harvest farm, where healthy green leafy crops are shown growing in the field before harvest begins. The viewer then moves through a post-harvest scene showing the field after the crops have been harvested. In both scenes interviews with farmer Rahab, as well as Linda, a factory distribution worker are embedded. These opening scenes situate the business within its agricultural environment and introduce the beginning of the supply chain that feeds into Nyota Limited’s processing operations. For several investors, these scenes addressed one of the most persistent challenges in evaluating rural agribusinesses: understanding what the business actually looks like in practice.

As one investor explained: “This helps me see what I would normally need a site visit for.”

Figure 8 Screenshots of pre-harvest and post harvest scenes in the VR project. (Source: Albacoxe Productions, 2024.)

Another described the benefit in terms of reducing what he called “imagination risk.”

“When we don’t see it ourselves, we fill in the gaps. And usually, we fill them in conservatively. This reduces imagination risk.”

That phrase imagination risk captures a central challenge in cross-border impact investing. Investment committee members reviewing rural Kenyan agribusinesses are often based in Nairobi, London, Amsterdam, or Washington. They rely on pitch decks, executive summaries, and second-hand due diligence reports. Even when a local analyst has visited the site, committee members making final decisions may not have. As a result, contextual gaps are often filled with assumptions.

Several investors acknowledged that rural ventures are frequently perceived as higher risk not necessarily because they are riskier, but because they are less familiar.

“If the committee hasn’t been to rural Kenya, they default to caution. That’s normal,” one investor noted.

In this context, the farm scenes functioned as a visual and spatial corrective. Rather than reading about Nyota Limited’s agricultural sourcing, investors could observe the farming environment and early stages of production directly. The immersive format narrowed the gap between narrative description and spatial understanding.

Importantly, this did not replace the need for verification. Investors did not interpret immersive visuals as proof of operational claims. Rather, the scenes shifted the starting point of discussion.

Instead of debating whether basic infrastructure or supply chains likely exist, conversations could move more quickly to strategic questions about scalability, margins, and market positioning.

In practice, the VR project appeared to function as a contextual equaliser. It did not eliminate risk, nor did it validate financial assumptions. But it reduced the informational distance between investors and the operational realities of a rural agribusiness.

Factory Operations: Observing Workflow and Workforce

After the farm scenes, the VR experience transitions into Nyota Limited’s factory environment. Viewers move through stages of sorting, portioning, and packaging before entering the cold room where products are stored prior to distribution. These scenes generated some of the strongest reactions among investors because they made the internal workflow of the company visible. Rather than describing factory operations through written explanations, the immersive format allowed investors to observe the movement of products through the facility and the workers responsible for each stage of processing.

For several participants, this visibility enhanced their ability to interpret operational capacity and workforce organisation.

One investor reflected: “Seeing the team dynamic tells me something spreadsheets don’t.”

Another described how the immersive environment added a human dimension to evaluation: “It humanizes the data.”

Figure 9 Screenshots of the sorting, packaging, cold room and distribution scenes in the VR project. (Source: Albacoxe Productions, 2024).

In venture analysis, spreadsheets typically dominate evaluation. Investors scrutinise revenue projections, unit economics, cost structures, customer acquisition strategies, burn rates, and scalability assumptions. Participants in this study were unequivocal that financial modelling remains the core foundation of investment decisions.

No participant suggested that VR could meaningfully assess margins, scalability, or long-term financial sustainability.

VR cannot stress-test a revenue model or verify audited financial statements.

However, where VR did contribute was in assessing less quantifiable aspects of the business, particularly founder credibility and team dynamics. This was illustrated through Florence’s interview embedded in the factory scene of the VR project where shared the background of Nyota Limited, its objectives and impact. This situated her as a leader of a women-led agribusiness, one of the key elements impact investors look out for.

In early-stage investing, founder quality often weighs heavily in decision-making. Investors evaluate not only the viability of the business model but also the capacity of the team to execute under uncertainty. Interviews are already a central component of due diligence, where investors assess clarity of communication, operational familiarity, and authenticity. The factory scenes appeared to replicate some of the observational value of site visits by allowing investors to see workers interacting, observe the scale of operations, and understand how tasks are organised.

This dynamic intersects with Agrawal and Jespersen’s (2024) research on impact investment evaluation, which found that empathy communicated by investees can influence investor perception. Empathy in this context does not replace financial analysis but interacts with it.

Investors may feel more aligned with founders whose mission and authenticity resonate. In our study, participants acknowledged that immersion intensified this human layer of evaluation.

“It gives me confidence that the founder understands their own operations,” noted one respondent.

Yet this influence was clearly bounded. Emotional resonance alone could not sustain investment decisions.

One participant articulated this balance clearly: “I might feel more confident after seeing the team in VR. But if I open the financial model and it doesn’t hold, that confidence disappears.”

Thus, VR functioned as a complement to financial rigor. It enhanced qualitative signals without displacing quantitative scrutiny.

Retail: Demonstrating Urban Market Distribution

The final sequence of the VR experience moves outside the factory, to a supermarket where Nyota Limited products appear in store freezers. There are also pop-up images of local Kenyan vegetables with short descriptions, for those who might be unfamiliar with them. These scenes illustrate the final stages of the company’s supply chain, connecting production with distribution and retail presence. For investors, this sequence helped demonstrate how Nyota Limited’s products move from agricultural sourcing to market placement. Rather than simply claiming to work with smallholder farmers and distribute products to retail outlets, the immersive format visually demonstrated the farm-to-factory-to-retail chain.

Investors could observe supply chain integration, workforce participation, and product placement in supermarkets. This moved the company from abstraction into a lived operational context. In the competitive sourcing stage of impact investing, this type of visual storytelling can influence how ventures stand out among numerous applications.

One investor explained: “If two companies are similar on paper, this stands out.”

Figure 10 Screenshot of supermarket scene in the VR project and pop-up icon of local vegetables with descriptions. (Source: Albacoxe Productions, 2024).

Another described the experience as memorable within crowded deal pipelines: “It’s memorable. After reviewing 30 decks, something like this sticks.”

Impact investors often review dozens, sometimes hundreds, of ventures through accelerator programs, open calls, and referral networks. In these environments, businesses are typically compared through pitch decks, executive summaries, and traction metrics. The immersive experience introduced an additional dimension: spatial storytelling. Instead of simply describing operations, Nyota Limited’s VR project demonstrated them.

Several investors described this as a competitive advantage during early screening, where visibility and differentiation can determine whether a company advances to deeper diligence.

Decision Stage: 15–60% Influence

When investors were asked directly to estimate how much influence the VR project might have on a final funding decision, their responses were cautious but revealing. The range they offered between 15% and 60% captures both the promise and the limits of immersive tools in investment contexts.

One participant responded conservatively: “Minimum 15%.”

For this investor, VR functioned as an incremental enhancer helpful, but far from decisive. It might tip a borderline case into deeper consideration, but it would not compensate for weak financials or unresolved risks.

Another investor offered a more expansive view: “If integrated with metrics and neutral production, maybe 60%.”

These percentages serve as speculative estimates from investors imagining how VR might influence their decisions, not measurements of actual decision outcomes in their portfolios. Nonetheless, the conditions embedded in that statement are critical. Influence increases when the VR project is tightly integrated with credible financial and operational data, and when production is perceived as impartial rather than promotional. In other words, VR’s persuasive power is not inherent in immersion alone; it depends on how well it is embedded within the broader due diligence architecture.

This variability suggests that VR operates as a perception-shaping tool rather than a decision-making substitute. It can strengthen confidence, reduce ambiguity, and accelerate alignment among committee members. It may influence early votes or internal advocacy. But it does not override financial modelling, legal structuring, or contract negotiation.

As one investor summarised: “It can shape the conversation. It doesn’t close the deal.”

Ultimately, VR can influence how risk is framed and how opportunity is interpreted. Yet the final investment decision remains anchored in numbers, governance, and enforceable agreements. VR informs the process but it does not replace its foundations.

Trust and Neutrality

Trust emerged as one of the most dominant and nuanced themes across all interviews. While investors were generally open to the idea of using immersive tools in their evaluation processes, their confidence in the content depended heavily on who produced it.

As one participant stated: “If IWMI produced it, I trust it more.”

Another agreed: “If it’s founder-produced, I’m cautious.”

These statements reveal a critical distinction between immersive media as documentation and immersive media as marketing. When VR is produced or validated by a neutral third party such as a research institution, accelerator, or development organisation it functions as a form of reputational endorsement. The implicit assumption is that external producers have less incentive to exaggerate, selectively edit, or curate misleading representations. However, this reliance on neutral third-party production creates a direct link to the cost issue discussed in the next section. If credibility depends on institutions like IWMI producing or validating immersive content, only well-funded actors can afford to create “trusted” VR. This creates a chicken-and-egg problem for scaling, where immersive documentation risks reinforcing rather than reducing inequities in which ventures receive credible representation.

Conversely, when immersive content is created solely by the venture seeking investment, investors perceive a higher risk of narrative control. Several investors suggested that credibility could be strengthened through standardised production frameworks, clear disclosure of editing choices, or co-branded partnerships with trusted intermediaries.

Ultimately, immersive tools operate within existing trust ecosystems. VR does not inherently create credibility; it amplifies whatever credibility already exists. When produced neutrally and transparently, it can reinforce confidence. When perceived as promotional, it risks undermining the very trust it aims to build.

Cost and Scalability

While investors were intrigued by the potential of immersive tools, enthusiasm quickly met practicality when the discussion turned to cost. The estimated production cost of the Nyota Limited VR project of approximately $10,000 prompted immediate scrutiny.

One investor responded candidly: “At pre-seed stage, that’s high.”

For early-stage ventures raising relatively modest amounts of capital, allocating $10,000 toward immersive media production may not be financially viable. At that stage, funds are typically directed toward operational growth, product development, or working capital, not communication tools.

Another investor reflected on cost relative to impact: “It’s interesting. But what’s the return on investment on that spend?”

This question underscores a broader challenge in XR-for-impact initiatives: immersive tools must justify themselves economically, not only experientially. If VR is to become part of standard due diligence processes, it must demonstrate measurable efficiency gains such as reduced travel costs, shortened screening cycles, or improved deal alignment.

Several participants proposed alternative models to address scalability concerns: “Maybe funds could pool resources.”

The idea of shared VR libraries surfaced repeatedly. Instead of each venture independently funding production - accelerators, investment funds, or development agencies could subsidise or co-finance immersive content creation. This would distribute cost across stakeholders and reduce duplication.

Some suggested that regional investment hubs or donor-funded initiatives could create standardized templates, lowering production barriers and increasing consistency.

The underlying message was clear: immersive tools will remain niche if they are expensive and bespoke. For VR to scale within impact investing ecosystems, production must become more modular, cost-efficient, and collaboratively financed. Immersion may offer value but in capital-constrained environments, value must exceed cost.

Geographic Reach

Geography emerged as a decisive factor in determining the value of the VR project. Investors repeatedly emphasised that the usefulness of immersive tools depends on who is evaluating the venture and where they are located.

One participant explained: “For local investors, we can visit. For foreign committees, this is powerful.”

This distinction is crucial. Nairobi-based analysts can often arrange site visits to agribusinesses within a few hours’ travel. For them, VR may enhance early screening, but it does not replace feasible physical access. However, investment committees are frequently international. Decision-makers may be based in Europe, North America, or elsewhere in Africa. Coordinating international travel for preliminary due diligence is costly and time-intensive. In such contexts, immersive tools can meaningfully reduce informational distance.

Rather than relying solely on secondhand reports from local analysts, foreign committee members can directly experience operational environments. They can observe infrastructure quality, production scale, workforce composition, and retail presence without leaving their offices.

One investor noted: “If I’m presenting this deal to colleagues in London, I’d much rather show them this than just describe it.”

This suggests that VR may be particularly valuable in multi-layered governance structures, where information must travel upward through hierarchical review processes. The greater the geographic separation between venture and decision-maker, the greater the potential benefit of immersive context. In this sense, VR does not replace physical visits, it bridges the gap until visits become justified. Its utility increases with distance, complexity, and the need to communicate rural realities across borders.

Geography shapes perception. Immersion narrows that gap.

Conclusion

This study sought to determine whether VR could be used as a tool to support impact investment evaluation for small-scale agribusinesses, and if so where it held the most value. While the results revealed several insights for investors, they also prompted reflection from Florence as the agribusiness owner at the centre of the case study.

For Florence, this project provided an opportunity to experiment with how she communicates her business to investors. Through the support of IWMI, Nyota Limited was used as a proof of concept to test whether VR could serve as a viable communication and engagement tool. The study’s results, when presented to Florence, suggested that Nyota Limited’s VR application could potentially be integrated into her existing investment outreach strategies for example as a URL embedded in pitch decks, briefly showcased during accelerator presentations and funding competitions, sent directly to targeted investors, or shared more broadly through social media channels for wider reach.

At the same time, the process prompted Florence to consider whether such a tool would ultimately justify the approximate $10,000 cost typically required to produce a VR experience of this nature. Beyond its potential value for investor engagement, Florence also reflected on several less tangible benefits that emerged from the production process. The VR experience captured the full scope of Nyota Limited’s operations and the workers who contribute at different levels of the supply chain, allowing her to represent the business in a more holistic way. In doing so, the project not only helped communicate the impact of Nyota Limited’s work but also encouraged Florence to reflect more deeply on her own supply chain and the people who make the business possible.

As the CEO of Nyota Limited, and often the public face of the company, Florence was able to share the VR project as a representation of the business that extended beyond financial figures and production metrics. It offered a way to present Nyota Limited as a living system of relationships, labour, and impact. Although still in the testing phase, the VR application provided Florence with a tangible package of her business that could be incorporated into existing funding applications and early-stage investment engagements, while also holding potential to evolve and improve alongside the growth of the company and emerging knowledge on the use of VR for impact investment.

Small-scale agribusinesses, such as Nyota Limited, often participate in seed funding initiatives like the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator pitch day, where they were awarded $18,000 (Wichenje et al., 2024). Allocating $10,000 from this seed funding toward VR development would represent approximately 55.5% of their total award. This illustrates a critical reality: most small-scale, seed-funded agribusinesses are unlikely to have sufficient capital to support VR development for their businesses. It also reinforces earlier discussions on how the use of VR for impact investment could inadvertently perpetuate inequalities by favouring more well-resourced actors within the sector.

This story is about Florence. It is the farmers delivering produce at dawn. It is the women on the processing line. It is the visible link between rural supply chains and urban markets. For a few minutes, investors stood inside that reality. They observed, listened, and contextualised what would otherwise have been abstract claims in a pitch deck.

That may not close every deal. It may not override weak fundamentals. But it narrows the gap between spreadsheet and on-the-ground realities and in capital allocation, narrowing that gap can make the difference between hesitation and momentum.

However, narrowing informational distance is not the same as proving structural transformation, and it is here that a forward-looking research agenda becomes essential. While this experiment offers promising insights, it also surfaces important unanswered questions. Immersive tools may influence perception, reduce informational gaps, and strengthen early-stage validation, but whether these effects translate into measurable structural change remains unclear.

First, does VR significantly shorten due diligence timelines?

Several investors suggested that immersive tools could replace early discovery calls or reduce unnecessary preliminary site visits. However, this study did not track actual deal timelines. It is possible that while VR accelerates contextual understanding - formal processes, legal review, financial verification, governance approvals continue at the same pace. If immersive tools merely frontload clarity without reducing institutional review cycles, the time savings may be marginal. Longitudinal studies tracking deal progression would be needed to determine whether immersive context translates into faster capital deployment.

Second, does VR improve deal conversion rates?

Investors estimated influence between 15% and 60%, but influence is not equivalent to conversion. A venture may feel more credible, yet still fail on financial metrics. Alternatively, immersive exposure may strengthen internal advocacy within investment committees, increasing the likelihood of approval in borderline cases. Without comparative data between VR-supported and non-VR-supported ventures, the impact on actual funding outcomes remains speculative.

Third, can pooled production models reduce inequality?

Immersive storytelling carries the risk of favoring ventures with greater communication resources and reinforcing inequalities. Shared production models funded by accelerators, development agencies, or investor consortia may level the playing field. But implementing such systems raises governance questions: Who selects which ventures receive immersive documentation? How is neutrality maintained? And could standardised formats inadvertently constrain authentic storytelling?

Ultimately, immersive tools sit at the intersection of technology, capital, and representation. Understanding their long-term structural effects requires broader ecosystem-level research beyond a single case study. VR shows promise as a complementary tool for reducing informational distance in impact investing particularly in remote or emerging-market contexts. Its greatest potential lies in functioning as an “immersive validation layer” within due diligence. For policymakers, accelerators, and XR practitioners, the challenge is not whether VR should replace site visits, but how to design credible, scalable immersive tools that responsibly bridge geographic and contextual gaps.

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End Notes

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Acknowledgements:

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Florence Mogere and the entire Nyota Limited team for generously opening their facilities to this project and participating in the development of the Virtual Field Trip. Their transparency, time, and willingness to experiment with new forms of representation made this research possible.

We are also deeply grateful to the investors who participated in interviews and testing sessions. Their candid reflections, critical feedback, and thoughtful engagement significantly strengthened both the analysis and the practical insights presented in this article.

We sincerely thank Dr. Greenwell Matchaya for offering his expertise as an economist, for serving as an internal reviewer of the manuscript, and for providing thoughtful and constructive feedback.

This research was made possible through funding from CGIAR’s Ukama Ustawi and Scaling for Impact programmes with the support of Dr. Inga Jacobs Mata. We gratefully acknowledge the programme’s commitment to innovation in impact investment and its support in enabling the exploration of immersive technologies as evaluation tools.

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Nkateko Nicole Langa, Nora Hanke-Louw, Nathanial Peterson, and Caroline Musau

Affiliations: International Water Management Institute; The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

Nkateko Nicole Langa is a research officer at the International Water Management Institute and a Ph.D. candidate studying Technology and Innovation Management.

Nora Hanke-Louw is a senior project coordinator at IWMI specializing in agricultural scaling portfolios.

Nathaniel Peterson is a behavioral economist and senior scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.

Caroline Musau is an investment professional with over ten years' experience in sustainable finance and SME investment readiness across East and Southern Africa.