Unlocking Pipeline: A playbook for entrepreneur support in Africa

Unlocking Pipeline: A playbook for entrepreneur support in Africa

Entrepreneur support has become an industry in Africa. The number of organizations dedicated to helping entrepreneurs scale has doubled in the past few years. But deal flow remains stubbornly low, especially at the early stage.

This report compiles lessons, case studies and trends gathered from our pioneering VilCap Communities Africa program and interviews with more than 300 stakeholders in our network.

The first section, Takeaways, is a playbook of best practices for ESOs, grantmakers and startup investors. The second section, Ecosystem Overviews, consists of high-level snapshots of the landscape today, and several in-depth case studies of ESOs.
VilCap Communities Africa
15
ESOs
250
Applicants
1,000
Stakeholders
To learn more about the entrepreneur support ecosystem in Africa Read our new report »
Letter from the CEO

When Barack Obama visited Nairobi in 2015, the city’s iHub incubator was one of about 200 organizations in Africa dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses. In the four years since, that number has doubled.

Entrepreneur support has become an industry in Africa. But deal flow remains stubbornly low, especially for early stage companies. At Village Capital we believe that empowering and strengthening these entrepreneur support organisations (ESOs), like accelerators and incubators, is the key to unlocking pipeline and driving investment across the continent.

In the coming pages my colleagues Brenda Wangari and Rachel Crawford will share an overview of the ESO industry in Africa, and a playbook of best practices for supporting African entrepreneurs, based on more than 300 interviews and surveys with stakeholders in our network.

Building entrepreneur support systems anywhere is hard. Doing this work in nascent ecosystems with extreme challenges around infrastructure, policy and currency is the work of fearless pioneers. We’re looking forward to working with these pioneers as the sector continues to grow.

– Allie Burns, CEO, Village Capital
What's Inside

VilCap Communities was a Village Capital program, funded by the UK Department for International Development’s Impact Programme, to convene leading African ESOs and share best practices.

Over the course of twelve months in 2018, we worked on the ground with 15 entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs), interviewed more than 80 ESOs, and engaged more than 1,000 stakeholders, from entrepreneurs to investors to government leaders.

We learned that the entrepreneur support sector in Africa has an opportunity for better communication and collaboration. ESOs are growing businesses — much like the startups they serve. We need to focus on resourcing and strengthening existing hubs, rather than creating new ones.

The first section of this report, Takeaways, will share a playbook of best practices that emerged from VilCap Communities Africa – takeaways for ESOs, but also for the grantmakers that support them and for startup investors.

The second section, Ecosystem Overviews, consists of high-level snapshots of the entrepreneur support landscape in Africa right now, and several in- depth case studies of ESOs.

Much of what we highlight has been mentioned in other reports published by our friends and colleagues in the Africa ecosystem. On Page 20 is a short (though certainly not exhaustive) list of publications for those looking to dive deeper.

– Brenda Wangari, Program Associate for Africa, Village Capital

About Village Capital

At Village Capital, we’re reinventing the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future—a future where business creates equity and long-term prosperity. We find, train and invest in entrepreneurs through our programs, study entrepreneurs through original research, and share what we know with leaders in business, finance and politics. In the past decade we’ve supported more than 1,000 entrepreneurs and facilitated seed capital into more than 100 graduates of our programs. Ultimately, we’re working to democratize entrepreneurship, and to create a future where business creates equity and long-term prosperity.




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