Accra, Ghana – Village Capital, in partnership with the Creativity group, is pleased to announce the launch of the second workshop of its Hardware: Africa 2015-16 accelerator program. The program supports early stage inventors improving access to energy for all, and increase agricultural productivity for small-holder farmers with hardware-based solutions.
Village Capital’s flagship program puts entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and stakeholders side-by-side, so they can solve problems together. Village Capital has committed US$100,000,000 in investment to the two companies ranked highest by their peers at the end of the program, in a unique process called peer-selection.
The Hardware Africa program will support entrepreneurs addressing innovations in Agriculture and energy issues through invention based hardware solutions, and will provide the entrepreneurs with business development training to develop their financials, pitch, sales pipeline, and other aspects. The group will also present to potential partners and customers at a stakeholder forum to be held in Accra on the 8th of January 2016 and will pitch to investors at a venture forum in Nairobi in March of 2016. .
Program graduates are expected to increase their revenue growth by 4.5 times, and distribute goods and/or services to 200,000 customers within the two years following completion of the accelerator.
Previous program winners include the likes of Farmerline, a Ghanaian company that tackles the agricultural information gap that smallholder farmers have through the use of mobile phones.
About Village Capital
Village Capital sources, trains and invests in seed-stage entrepreneurs with business solutions to major global problems. Village Capital recruits entrepreneurs solving specific problems in agriculture, energy, education, financial inclusion, and health, and then puts the power of investment in the hands of the entrepreneurs, who award the prize investments to the two ventures ranked highest by their peers at the end of every program. The organization supports early-stage ventures through a 501c3 nonprofit operating training programs for founders, investors, and communities, as well as through an affiliated, for-profit investment fund providing early-stage capital to top-ranked ventures of each program.
