The new report, "What Ugandan ESOs Can Teach The World," answers the question “What’s working in entrepreneur support?” drawing insights straight from the experiences of people who are working with entrepreneurs in Uganda, every day.
Nairobi, Kenya. 16th March, 2023 - Village Capital, with the support of Argidius Foundation, has released a report titled What Ugandan ESOs Can Teach The World. The report answers the question “What’s working in entrepreneur support?” drawing insights straight from the experiences of people who are working with entrepreneurs in Uganda, every day.
The report is a culmination of Village Capital’s extensive work supporting Uganda entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) through the Uganda Ecosystem Builders program, which was established in 2020 to improve the strategy, sustainability, and impact of locally-led ESOs. Through this program, Village Capital worked closely with more than two dozen ESO leaders to better understand their needs.
The past few years have seen a steady rise in the number of ESOs (accelerators, incubators, tech hubs, and seed funds) in sub-Saharan Africa. These organizations are often the first line of support for local entrepreneurs, solving real-world problems, sitting in investor blind spots. Unfortunately, these critical organizations – and the people who run them – are often under-resourced. Systemic structures make accessing financial, social, human, and technical capital extremely difficult for ESOs. As a result, this resource gap stifles their ability to make the internal investments they need to develop their products and services, teams, and infrastructure required to truly support local entrepreneurs.
Download the report here to learn more about what’s working in Uganda, and to access a practical set of exercises and case studies developed in close collaboration with ESO leaders who have tried and tested building out their organizations’ financial, impact, and operational viability.
For more information, contact Eva Waweru at eva.waweru@vilcap.com
About Village Capital
Village Capital is reinventing the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future. Known for its groundbreaking approaches to supporting founders who are building solutions to emergent social, economic, and environmental challenges, VilCap unlocks critical social and financial capital for early-stage companies to maximize business and impact growth.
Village Capital has operated in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2012 by running over 14 accelerator programs in serving entrepreneurs in 15 countries in the region. VilCap has supported more than 120 locally-based startups and 78 entrepreneur support organizations (ESO) working in sectors such as financial health, hardware, sustainability, and the future of work. Learn more at www.vilcap.com and follow @villagecapital.
About Argidius Foundation
Argidius Foundation promotes the growth of SMEs in order to improve the lives of the poor through increased income generation, and supports inclusive economic growth as one of the primary drivers of change in low-income countries. Argidius believes that the development of SMEs is critical to achieving sustainable development. Businesses create employment and generate income and are, therefore, key to reducing poverty. In developing countries, the small business sector is relatively under-served, resulting in what is known as the missing middle. By supporting the emergence of an effective, attractive and viable ecosystem of SME development services, Argidius can help build SME capacity, improve their productivity and sustainability, and extend their access to markets and finance. In this way, Argidius leverages resources to create positive change.
