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.
Istanbul, Turkey (May 15, 2023) – Village Capital, in partnership with the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), has released a report titled Unlocking the Pipeline MENA: Getting High Growth Potential Ventures Investment Ready. The insights report explores the key themes and trends impacting the early-stage venture ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, encouraging stakeholders to collectively collaborate to drive sustainable entrepreneurial and economic growth within the region.
"Our primary objective was to address the question: How can ecosystem builders best support entrepreneurs to succeed?" shared Alicia Sornson, MENA Region Lead, Village Capital. "To answer this question, we connected with over 50 key ecosystem players including investors, development agencies, ESO leaders, entrepreneurs, and others working with early-stage ventures in the region, to collectively share insights on what’s working in the ecosystem and areas we can improve upon to further drive the region's entrepreneurial potential towards sustainable growth and prosperity."
The report highlights four key aspects of ecosystem growth namely; talent, market fragmentation, access to finance, and support systems. It also delves into the current state of affairs, outlining gaps and opportunities to address, as the ecosystem works towards unlocking pipelines in the region, and improving upon sourcing, due diligence, and technical assistance for entrepreneurs.
This report will also act as a reference tool to inform the program design of the MENA Ecosystem Builders program – an accelerator for accelerators that is looking to support locally-led ESOs based in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia, to better meet the needs of youth-led, high-growth potential ventures, and drive capital towards them.
For more information, contact Eva Waweru at Village Capital (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 the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2018 by running over 6 accelerator programs. Vilcap has supported more than 70 locally-based startups working in sectors such as data tech, financial health, green tech, and health equity. Learn more at www.vilcap.com and follow @villagecapital.
About DGGF
The Dutch Good Growth Fund is a “fund of fund” investment initiative from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched in 2014 with aim to improve financing for the “missing middle” – i.e. entrepreneurs who have outgrown microfinance but do not have access to conventional capital markets – in 70+ countries. The Seed Capital and Business Development (SC&BD) program was established to further the impact of the DGGF by providing Seed Capital, Technical Assistance and Business Development Services to local financial service providers and entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs). In addition, the program incorporates a knowledge development and sharing component that supports research, tests assumptions and shares insights on financing SMEs in developing countries and emerging markets - fostering industry-wide knowledge exchange.
