Incubators, accelerators and seed funds in Sub-Saharan Africa have until July 6 to apply for VilCap Communities Africa, a new programme from Village Capital aimed at equipping entrepreneur ecosystem leaders with the tools, resources and connections they need to catalyse impact investment.
Organisers will select 15 applicants to take part in forums over the course of the rest of the year in Lagos, Nairobi and Cape Town, where they will share learnings and best practices. The programme is being run by Village Capital and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
“You shouldn’t look only to Silicon Valley or London to find working models for how to support entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Rachel Crawford, innovation manager for emerging markets at Village Capital.
“There are exciting things happening here in Africa, and a lot of wisdom developing about what works specific to this context. But there’s a lot of room to grow. We want to bring together leaders from different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa to share what’s working and build a community of best practices.”
VilCap Communities Africa is an iteration of VilCap Communities, a 26-city pilot programme to license Village Capital’s curriculum and investment model to accelerators, incubators and investors around the globe.
The forums will share best practices on supporting entrepreneurs, assisting ecosystem leaders with things like attracting funding for programmes, recruiting and selecting high potential ventures, and improving certain aspects of their ecosystems that need development.
