CeedCap, a startup studio on a mission to build great companies, has announced its official membership into the Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN), a network of venture builders, giving startups the power to create and grow powerful businesses and make a meaningful impact, wherever they call home.
This milestone is a major move for CeedCap on its mission to become Africa’s leading venture builder and impact investor. CeedCap’s goal is to create 500,000 jobs across Africa by 2050 through digital innovation and impact investing in remarkable entrepreneurs with ambitious and sustainable ideas.
Startups in Africa are growing at a rapid pace but despite the recent successes and heightened global recognition, a lot of entrepreneurs still struggle to appropriately execute their ideas. The fact remains that a majority of startups still identify poor execution, limited funding, and market access as the primary drivers of most failed innovative ideas.
“The studio model of building and launching new ventures has been around for a while but has not been standardized. Becoming a GSSN Studio means we—like other studios—work to achieve the gold standard of building and launching more successful impact startups across Africa,” says Kessiena Majemite, Founder & Managing Partner at CeedCap.
GSSN provides the highest quality support to studios and their founders, leading to incredible outcomes for startups across the globe. Best known for achieving local impact and global reach, GSSN Studios represents true leadership in the global industry.
“GSSN is not for everyone, and rightfully so. GSSN Studios represent the world’s most respected studios as well as some of the most inspiring pioneers working to grow startup ecosystems in unexpected places. And this credibility benefits us all,” said Nick Zasowski, Director, GSSN.
CeedCap is the first startup studio in Africa to be named a GSSN Studio.
This membership gives CeedCap startups, access to a number of opportunities including access to a community of investors interested in investing in both studio funds and startups raising capital within the studio; the platform providing connections for portfolio companies out of GSSN Studios to GSSN’s relevant corporate partners and resources containing answers to operational and logistics questions involved with running a studio.
Also, startups in CeedCap’s portfolio have an opportunity to visit any GSSN Studio or GAN Accelerator (GSSN’s sister community) in the world for up to two weeks. CeedCap’s startups can also request mentorship or funding from the GAN Venture Fund,an early-stage investment vehicle.
Kessiena Majemite says further, “Our vision at CeedCap is to develop a framework for entrepreneurs to build sustainable ventures by providing the human and financial resources, as well as offer early-stage investors a vehicle to diversify and de-risk their portfolios. At CeedCap, we believe digital inclusion through early-stage investment is a channel to unlock next-generation opportunity and bridge the poverty gap for African.”
CeedCap current portfolio includes Evesting, a one-stop investment marketplace for alternative investments; Drawp, a drop shipping service leveraging a network of 1,000 distributors in Nigeria; Bestseller, a marketplace for micro-businesses to own their own online stores; Crowdcone, short to medium term project financing platform for SMEs; Swiftly, order fulfilment service for online businesses in need of fractional warehousing and storage; and Dillali, a cloud invoicing platform for SMEs.
