Empowering Sustainable Entrepreneurship Africa 2024

About the Program

With support from Norad – the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Village Capital has launched Empowering Sustainable Entrepreneurship Africa, a transformative ecosystem-building Africa program aimed at strengthening the capacity and impact of Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs), and climate-focused early-stage startups in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

We are launching Phase One of the initiative to identify 14 high-performing community-led entrepreneur support organizations. These 14 ESOs from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania will work collaboratively on ecosystem-specific problem statements and strategies to best identify and support high-potential startups in their ecosystems. In addition, to benefit from Village Capital’s strategic support and deep dives with world-class Thematic Experts in blue economy, renewable energy, climate adaptation and food security.

At the end of 2024, we will select one ESO partner per market to co-lead Venture Programs in 2025-26.

About Ecosystem Building

Village Capital has spent over 10 years improving access to capital for early-stage high-impact startups across Asia, Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, US, and MENA regions. Although building early-stage impact-creating startups is challenging, many ecosystems have led the way and shown that progress can be achieved with the right combination of actors and capital. One of these practices is to take an ecosystem-building approach.

Ecosystem building is about creating an enabling environment for early-stage startups to thrive unlocking critical social and financial capital. We focus on impact growth and driving systems-level change that makes impact investing more inclusive and empowers a broader range of entrepreneurs, with a strong preference for founders with lived experience of the problem they seek to solve.

We believe that thriving ecosystems can develop anywhere, and one of the critical drivers of sustainable and fair development is the empowerment of local visionaries and talent like those found leading and working within local entrepreneur support organizations.

About Greentech

Greentech Global, an initiative led by Village Capital and industry-leading partners, supports scalable market-based innovations addressing sustainability challenges. The initiative prioritizes underrepresented entrepreneurs developing promising solutions tailored to the unique challenges faced by each region.

The initiative focuses on solutions supporting the green energy transition, climate mitigation and adaptation, ecosystem restoration, and the regenerative economy. Leveraging Village Capital’s global network and tools, we mitigate bias, provide training on identifying appropriate capital structures, facilitate direct investment and support regional/global expansion.

Problem Statement

Community-led Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) play a crucial role in creating an enabling ecosystem for climate startups. They connect these startups with the critical resources (financial, networks, and training) they need to build sustainable and impactful businesses. However, many ESOs face challenges similar to the startups they support. Limited resources hinder their ability to provide comprehensive support and build a robust pipeline of investible startups.

Our initiative aims to empower these ESOs focusing on those based in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.s By strengthening their capabilities, we aim to build  a resilient ecosystem that fosters impactful solutions and drives sustainable economic growth across Africa.

Eligibility

We’re looking for locally-led ESOs that are supporting sustainability ventures across sub-Saharan Africa. Eligibility requirements include:

• The ESO must be operating in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.
• The organization must be willing to support climate-focused – early-stage, tech-enabled small and medium enterprises with significant growth potential, and/or ventures with scale potential.
• The organization must support ventures through a formal incubation/accelerator program.
• The organization must be providing or looking to provide training, resources, advice, or support to entrepreneurs around finance and investment.
• The organization must have been in operation for more than 2 years OR has grown from co-founder/founder to 5+ employees including middle management (department leads, partnership managers, incubator and accelerator managers, program managers)

Program Benefits

• Training: Our curriculum is tailored to help your organization build better services and enhance program delivery, including sector-specific sessions led by experts, program management tools training, and key stakeholder engagement.
• Mentorship: Build 1:1 connections with potential funders, strategic partners and potential customers. Additionally, you’ll get access to Village Capital’s broader ESO community of 160+ ESOs.
• Research Collaboration: ESOs will get access to comprehensive research on sustainability entrepreneurship in Africa, collaborating with fellow program participants to enrich their projects and knowledge.
• Financial Analysis: Chat with an investment analyst who will coach you 1:1 on building a financial model, identifying unit economics, and using financial metrics.
• Media Exposure: Get featured on Village Capital’s program website and other collateral.
• Access to Abaca: Scale your business faster by effectively planning your next milestones for growth through our ESO Diagnostic tool.

Program Timeline

• May 2nd – Applications Open
• June 14th – Applications Close
• Mid-July – Cohort Announced
• Mid – August – Program Workshops