From August 17 to September 15, 2022, I&P Conseil is launching a call for applications for the new edition of the Investment Readiness training, which is part of I&P Acceleration in Sahel program. 10 new entrepreneurship structures (incubators, acceleration centers, start-up studios) will benefit from a training program dedicated to understanding the financial challenges of African SMEs.
A hybrid training program to become key partners of SMEs in Sahel and the sub-region
With twenty years of experience of Investisseurs & Partenaires in impact financing and support, I&P Conseil, a branch of I&P, has designed a training program aimed at all professionals and structures involved in entrepreneurship who accompany young entrepreneurs in their daily lives and who wish to become essential partners of SMEs in their fundraising.
Designed with I&P’s investment teams, the training will take place online and in person over a period of nine months. Learners will also have access to individualized mentoring sessions that will allow them to adapt the knowledge they have acquired in the field.
“The objective of this training is to work with entrepreneurship support structures on the essential notions related to the governance of a young company, its development project and its financing needs. Incubators often lack resources and skills. Beyond theory, it is a real human experience, which allows to catalyze the meeting between several actors of the sub-region, investment companies and financial backers” underlines Olivier Bokoga, expert-trainer at I&P Conseil.
In 2021, 10 structures from 8 countries in the Sahel sub-region have already benefited from this training: ActivSpaces (Cameroon), CIPMEN (Niger), Concree (Senegal), Donilab (Mali), EVA (Senegal), Impact Hub Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), Innov’up (Togo), iSpace (Ghana), La Fabrique (Burkina Faso) and Oasis (Niger).
Selection criteria to benefit from Investment Readiness training
Investment Readiness aims at entrepreneurship support organisations (incubators, accelerators, start-ups studios, consulting firms in technical assistance…) which answer to the following criteria :
- Private or public entity
- Located in one of the thirteen countries of intervention of the program: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo
- Holders of a formal legal status as an association or company recognized by the national authorities
- Ability to produce financial statements for the two years preceding the selection year
- Ability to assign staff and infrastructure to implement program activities
Will not be eligible
- Individual applications
- ESOs with less than two years of legally registered activity
- ESOs that currently do not offer any internal or external support on financial matters to their entrepreneur
- ESOs that have less than two start-ups/SME support officers on their team
The deadline for applications is next Thursday, September 15.
For more information, click here
To access the application form, click here
