Transforming Land and Improving Lives - The Story of Nulands

Land deals in Kenya are often characterized by opaqueness and fraud. People fear investing in real estate because there are a lot of unknowns. Joseph Kamata is working to change that. An engineer by training, Joseph has also worked for UNICEF. But in 2013, amid a promising career, Joseph stepped out in faith and founded Nulands, a land development company, as a side hustle. Fast forward ten years, and today, Nulands is a thriving business modeling how to develop land in Africa as a Kingdom business. 

Under Joseph’s direction, Nulands first set a high bar in the area of title acquisition. The company provides clients with clean titles and makes it clear from the beginning what prospective buyers are getting into.

“We have a policy, that it doesn’t matter how beautiful the land is or how attractive the price is. If the paperwork and due diligence show us there are unresolved issues, we don’t get into it.” - Joseph Kamata

Such standards have earned Nulands a reputation for reliability with the bulk of their business coming from referrals. 

Joseph’s transition from working for others to scaling Nulands—moving from what he calls “corporate think” and structure to serving as a business CEO—has been his biggest challenge. He knew he had some of the skills to run a successful, profitable company, but he didn’t have all of them. A turning point came last year when he joined Ascent, a customized nine-month Sinapis program that equips entrepreneurs and their teams to achieve break-out growth and investment readiness. 

“The Ascent experience has been one of the best experiences we’ve gone through, It helped us to scale and think bigger. It has helped us prepare to take off.”

He says the program has given Nulands a new focus on systems. “Currently, we are going through HR rejigging. We are looking to professionalize our staff composition and refine our job descriptions. In short, we are getting the right people on the bus and getting them in the right seats—a concept that came from the Ascent program. We’re also more efficient, and understand the business better.”

Sinapis’ Ascent team also worked with Joseph and his core leadership on value additions the company could provide. “Most people buy land and probably have an idea of what they want to do, but they don’t have the expertise or time to do it. Nulands helps people acquire and develop land—to derive value,” says Joseph. To do this, he and his team identify land in areas with high growth potential or agribusiness opportunities for farming. They create access to property they are selling via roads, and they fence the land. They often hire an on-site caretaker. “We’ve had a lot of requests from our clients to support them with their land development, so we’ve branched into concrete products manufacturing. We’ve also developed nurseries to support our clients with their tree planting needs.”

Another benefit of Ascent for Nulands has been cohort collaboration. “The Ascent program allowed us to establish some very interesting partnerships,” Joseph says. When his Ascent cohort was sharing challenges and pain points, one of the other companies, Mace Foods, mentioned that they couldn’t get enough chili peppers to process for both local and international markets. “We saw that as an opportunity because we have land,” Joseph told us. Now, Nulands grows cayenne peppers for Mace. “We’re at the harvesting stage. They provided the training and the seed, and we have a drying facility we installed through some connections that Mace provided. We’re liking the journey,” says Joseph with a smile. They are also impacting the local economy by hiring workers for the next eighteen months of pepper harvests.

But the Kingdom impact Nulands is having doesn’t stop there. “We’ve made it our mission every time we’re selling land, or we want to open an area, that we create a road and find a way of providing water,” Joseph says. In one land development project outside of Narok, a rural town several hours south of Nairobi, 50 families access water from a well dug by Nulands. The service has been so valuable to the community that Joseph is looking for grants to drill boreholes there. His efforts demonstrate what happens when faith and business intersect—what it looks like to love your neighbor as yourself. “Our faith is part of who we are,” says Joseph, “as Christians, we want to do the right thing.”

Today, Nulands employs 19 men and women and provides business for surveyors, lawyers, agents, and appraisers. In three years, they anticipate growing into a company with 70 employees and, in five years, 100. “We see Nulands as a trailblazer. We see ourselves as catalysts for growth. We see ourselves as a company mandated to help people imagine.”  

Five years from now, Joseph believes Nulands will be known as the company behind some of the most notable land developments in Kenya in areas like Juja, Narok, Naivasha, Kitani, and Isinya. “All of these places were bare land with nothing happening, but as we’ve helped places come up, five years from now, there will be schools, businesses, factories, estates, and other notable locations because Nulands took the step to go in there, make the change, transform the land, and make it possible for people to settle and to do business.” It’s a noble vision for a man committed to Kingdom business principles and the needs of his neighbors. 

“But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.”
Psalm 41:12 

Sinapis serves highly motivated founders and CEOs looking to achieve breakout growth and investment readiness in their companies for the glory of God through our nine-month Ascent program. World-class mentors engage a small, elite founders cohort, helping them develop a clear path to success. But training doesn’t stop there. Mentors offer practical guidance and godly wisdom on how to lead a business as a follower of Christ. We emphasize CEOs serving others, and companies impacting their surrounding community and transforming lives. If you or a business leader you know is interested in learning more about Ascent and applying for our next cohort, please contact ascentteam@sinapis.org.