Larry English Director
Three decades shaping housing policy, programme design and delivery systems across Africa and Asia. Larry brings the rare ability to translate between institutional realities and what actually needs to happen on the ground.
Project investors · platform investors · land and pipeline partners
Affordable housing in Africa is investable when the structure is right.
Urbuntu turns real sites and real demand into ring-fenced transactions and delivery platforms that capital can actually back.
Engagement is selective and typically begins with direct discussion.
Current activity
MlolongoPhase 1 + 2 capital raise for a 383-unit programme within a 1,148-unit phased platform.
Placemakers KenyaLive delivery platform with NACHU, linking organised demand, project structuring and execution.
UrbuntuSelective mandates and capital discussions that can expand the model beyond a single project or market.
Operating principleCommercially viable structures first — useful to households, investable for capital, durable over time.
Current transaction focus
Placemakers Mlolongo is a phased, investable housing platform.
Located on the Nairobi–Mombasa corridor, Mlolongo is structured as a six-phase platform with ring-fenced delivery, demand alignment and realistic exit logic.
1,148units in full platform
383units in current raise
6ring-fenced phases
12kmfrom JKIA
What we believe
Affordable housing does not fail for lack of demand. It fails when projects are not structured to absorb capital.
Urbuntu exists to change that — project by project, platform by platform, until affordable housing can be treated as a normal private-sector asset class.
About Urbuntu
Building markets from the bottom up.
Urbuntu was established to prove that affordable housing in Africa can be delivered through commercially serious structures rather than perpetual market distortion. We identify projects, shape pipelines, build investment vehicles and stay close until execution risk is reduced enough for capital to move.
The leadership experience behind Urbuntu spans affordable housing, settlement upgrading, institutional structuring and urban delivery across Africa and Asia. The current proof market is Kenya. The long-term ambition is wider, but it will be earned through disciplined execution rather than rhetoric.
100,000+housing units delivered across Africa and Asia through leadership-linked work
500,000+units planned or in pipeline across current and earlier programmes
26emerging and frontier markets where the team has worked
East Africa firstKenya is the active proof market for a wider platform strategy
The directors
Rupert Dehaene-Gold Director
Real estate investment and asset management across multiple geographies, with a persistent focus on capital discipline. Rupert tests whether the structure survives contact with markets, counterparties and the real cost of delivery.
Joe de Swardt Director
Development strategy, financial structuring and execution logic in East Africa. Joe works where a transaction still looks too messy for capital, and helps turn it into something coherent enough to back.
Placemakers — delivery platform
Advice is cheap. We build the vehicle.
Placemakers Kenya is Urbuntu’s delivery platform with NACHU. It exists to move projects from concept to structured execution, linking project logic, organised demand, land, approvals and capital preparation in one place.
This is the difference between an advisory recommendation and a structure that can actually carry risk.
Explore Placemakers Kenya
Current proof points
Project case study
Mvuli Place, Riruta
The first proof point: 120 units in Nairobi showing that a real project can move from site and structure into credible delivery.
See why it matters
Platform case study
Placemakers Mlolongo
A corridor-location platform with phased execution, NACHU-linked demand and investor logic designed into the structure from the start.
Review the platform summaryHow we work
Practical, structured, execution-led.
01
Start with site and demand
Real location, real paying households, real constraints and a sober view of what the market can carry.
02
Structure capital before asking for it
Vehicles, phasing, capital stack, exit logic and responsibility lines are shaped before investors are asked to commit.
03
Ring-fence risk
Projects, phases and counterparties are isolated so capital can see clearly what it is funding and what can go wrong.
04
Stay until value is created
We do not treat the report as the product. The product is a project or platform that is materially closer to execution.
World Bank contributions
The people behind Urbuntu have helped shape the sector’s thinking.
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
Affordable Housing PPPs in Emerging Markets
Argued for honest risk allocation and real delivery vehicles in emerging-market housing.
View publication
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
Kenya Country Climate and Development Report
Treated housing and infrastructure investment as a financial and resilience question, not an ideological one.
View publication
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
Tanzania Country Climate and Development Report
Extended the same frame to Tanzania: investment pathways, infrastructure exposure and long-term resilience.
View publication
World Bank document
Unlocking Supply of Affordable Housing in Kenya: The Naivasha Prototype
Showed how demand, investor logic and implementation vehicle design need to be solved together.
View publicationInformation on this website is indicative only and does not constitute an investment offer. Engagement is conducted on a private basis.