RevUp Women Initiative Call for Women-Led Businesses

RevUp Women Initiative is an enterprise development programme for early-stage women-led businesses in Africa. It is designed to accelerate these businesses into profitable & sustainable ventures that can stimulate the creation of jobs on the continent. The initiative aims to foster gender equality and inclusive economic growth through enterprise development training, mentorship, peer-to-peer learning and providing access to finance. This cohort is funded by The Visa Foundation.

AfriLabs is calling on women-led businesses across select locations in Africa to apply for this cohort of the initiative. In this cohort, 500 businesses will go through a rigorous training and mentoring session and ten (10), one(1) in each pilot city will be selected to be funded by the programme. Each of the selected businesses will be funded with a matching grant of 10,000 dollars, following the criteria and model of the Catalytic Africa fund.

Eligibility criteria

The applications are open to early-stage women-led businesses across Africa. These businesses must meet the following criteria before applying:

• At least 51 per cent owned by a woman
• Be led by a woman
• Be located in any of these cities in Africa
  • Nigeria –  Lagos, Abuja
  • South Africa –  Johannesburg, Cape Town
  • Cameroon – Douala, Yaounde
  • Kenya –  Nairobi, Kisumu
  • Democratic Republic of Congo-  Kinshasa, Lubumbashi
• Have an already existing service or product
• Have evidence of sales of existing services or product
• Have an existing business model
• Registered and incorporated in the country of operation
• Be operational for at least 6 months
• Be able to dedicate 8 weeks to an intense hybrid training and mentoring session

Note: Evidence of sales would be requested during the due diligence phase

Benefits

• Access to high-quality female mentors Across Africa
• 10 business owners will be selected to be funded with 10,000 dollars following the Catalytic Africa guidelines
• Access to additional funding opportunities for participants and a network of funders across Africa
• Access to the AfriLabs network

Application timeline

• Application opens on 28th June 2023.
• Application closes on 14th July  2023.