Funding for young entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs often come across as a rare breed of human beings. This is often due to the fact that it takes a certain bent of mind to become one. It takes among other factors, integrity, discipline, courage, the right choice of spouse and hard work to be successful as an entrepreneur and these qualities take both time and persistence to develop.

In addition to developing these qualities, at some point in their quest to grow and develop their businesses, entrepreneurs need life lines in the form of reliable and cost effective seed money.

Seedstars Africa

Seedstars Africa is a member of Seedstars Group, a Swiss-based venture builder that is active and invests in 35+ countries around the world especially in emerging markets in Asia, South America, The Middle East and Africa.

Through Seedstars World, its popular, highly competitive and exclusive start-up competition for start-ups in emerging markets, the company is able to identify promising companies to support with capital and technical help.

In 2014, Seedstars invested $330,000 in SimplePay, a young Nigerian third-party payment processing company that created a solution to disrupt payment services in Nigeria and Africa.

African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)

The AWDF is the first pan-African women’s grant maker in Africa. Since the start of its operations in 2001, AWDF has provided $17 million in grants to 800 women’s organizations in 42 African countries.

The AWDF is an institutional capacity-building and programme development fund, which aims to help build a culture of learning and partnerships within the African women’s movement. In addition to raising money and awarding grants, the AWDF will attempt to strengthen the organisational capacities of its grantees.

The AWDF only awards grants to organisations, not individuals. It awards grants ranging from $8,000 up to $50,000.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU