ShEquity Partners, an investment firm that promotes African women in entrepreneurship, has revealed that it will invest in and support more than 100 potential women-owned and led businesses in Africa.
Armed with a $1.2 million co-investment grant from the USAID funded West Africa Trade & Investment Hub, the firm is poised to help women actualize their goals. According to the founder and Managing Director, Pauline Koelbl, women entrepreneurs are very vital to Africa’s success.
She revealed that they operate more than 40 percent of small and medium-sized businesses in Africa. She revealed that one of the hurdles faced by African women entrepreneurs is inability to collectively grow these businesses due to a shortfall of $42 billion in financing than their male counterparts in the continent.
The fund is meant to establish the ShEquity’s USAID Trade Hub project to address these challenges by combining cash investment, structured technical support, and access to high-value networks, specifically leveraging on its $1.2 million co-investment grant which will attract at least $15 million in private funding that will be cumulatively used to invest in, scale, and accelerate women-owned or led businesses operating in the following countries; Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria.
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The targeted businesses will operate in one of some selected sectors which are: agribusiness, healthcare, tech-enabled solutions, renew- able energy, mobility, and fast-moving consumer goods. “If Africa is to reach its full economic potential, smart investment for African women entrepreneurs needs to be dramatically increased.”
The lack of financing, combined with insufficient business support, put potential women entrepreneurs and those seeking to expand their already successful businesses in a growth deficit or low-income trap, widening the gender gap and reinforcing negative biases.” Koelbl said.
Additionally, as part of the USAID Trade Hub project, ShEquity will provide business development services and technical support to 120 women owned or led businesses in the target markets and also select 12 high-growth, high-impact businesses that will each receive at least $50,000 in venture capital funding. The combined investments in the 12 selected companies are expected to create at least 200 jobs and benefit around 20,000 people economically either directly or indirectly, along their respective value chains, through 2024.
To accomplish these goals, ShEquity will leverage its proven experience in champion- ing women-led businesses for success. ShEquity is intention- ally building an integrated and holistic approach toward unlocking the potential of African female founders.
The strategy involves combining its Business Accelerator and its Investment Vehicle to support women to grow their businesses. This provides pre-investment venture building support to allow access to a trusted pipeline of potential deals and serves also as a post investment technical assistance facility.
ShEquity was started by Koelbl in May 2020 with her seed capital of around $250,000. The firm has since invested in eight businesses in Sub-Saharan countries. ShEquity has been investing as a special vehicle purpose and is now in the process of formalizing into a venture capital fund structure. Koelbl says ShEquity’s current portfolio of companies have impacted more than 13.5 million people across Sub-Saharan.
Speaking on what this partner- ship means to ShEquity, Koelbl stated thus: “We are excited about the future, as we hope to see more action towards democratiz- ing access to capital and closing the gender funding gap in Africa. Backing female-led funds are the best strategy to address the gender funding gap because of its trickle-down effect: more diversity in capital allocators translates into the diversity of businesses getting funded.
The USAID Trade Hub’s partnership with ShEquity represents its commitment to ensuring more women in West Africa have the access to finance, resources, and knowledge needed to grow their businesses and speed economic development in the region.
Speaking on the development, the Chief of Party for the USAID Trade Hub, Robin Wheeler said “African startups face many hurdles, but those launched by women even more so, despite their drive and determination.
The USAID Trade Hub is proud to join with ShEquity to respond to this challenge with a coordinated approach, providing capital as well as operational and technical support to unlock the full potential of the many women-owned businesses in Africa.”
