VilCap Communities Africa

Village Capital and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Impact Programme have opened applications for VilCap Communities Africa, a programme to equip entrepreneur ecosystem leaders across sub-Saharan Africa with the tools, resources and connections they need to catalyse impact investment.

Applications are now open for entrepreneur support organisations (ESO’s) to take part in forums on September 24-28 and October 22-26. We’ll open applications for a second group of ESO’s later this summer.

The programme will cover :

• How to attract funding for your program
• How to stimulate investment capital in your ecosystem
• How to help prepare entrepreneurs to become ready for investment
• How to improve certain aspects of your ecosystem that need development, such as corporate partnerships, mentor networks, angel networks and access to venture capital.

The deadline to apply for the first cohort is July 6. We will be recruiting two cohorts for this program, a maximum of 8 ESO’s per cohort.

ELIGIBILITY

To be eligible to apply, you must be focused on supporting early-stage impact enterprises addressing countrywide or regional problems, such as financial inclusion, agriculture, healthcare, environmental sustainability and others affecting those in poverty. You must fall into one of the following categories:

• Accelerator or incubator of early-stage companies
• Seed stage or early-stage venture capital firm
• Association or network of entrepreneurs
• SME business advisory firm
• University incubator
• Think tank

You are welcome to apply jointly with other entrepreneur support organisations from the same country, region, trade zone, common market or with an organisation which shares your social agenda.

THE FORUMS

We’ll host three forums in the most developed Sub-Saharan African ecosystems Lagos, Nairobi and Cape Town in order to share learnings and best practices with ecosystem stakeholders.

• Vilcap Communities Africa, Cohort 1 : 24-28 September
• Vilcap Communities Africa, Cohort 2 : 22-26 October
• Vilcap Communities Africa, Cohort 1 & 2 Forum : 12-14 November