Many ideas fail to become reality and startups often abandon their progress due to insufficient access to capital.
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Securing investment and funding to support growth and operations is one of the most significant challenges that startups encounter. Obtaining a suitable investment is a task that requires a huge amount of energy from founders. Many ideas fail to become reality and startups often abandon their progress due to insufficient access to capital.
Although this problem continues to persist, prospects are far from bleak. Over the past five years or so, various grant and funding opportunities have been popping up. There are now various grant and funding opportunities are available for startups in Ethiopia. In this article, we will explore some of the potential investment avenues that startups can explore to secure funding and accelerate their growth.
xHub Addis
xHub Addis is an incubation and acceleration hub where enthusiastic entrepreneurs are trained, mentored, and coached. They have different incubation and acceleration programs, workshops, events, and networking opportunities. They give a chance to get access to investments and grants in the process of incubation.
Iceaddis
Iceaddis is a co-creation space that accelerates high-potential startups, facilitates technological innovations, and works with a multi-partnership approach to activate youth to gain economic empowerment. Iceaddis also implemented venture media in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation and the Ministry of Innovation and Technology. Venture Media aims to create a thriving local private sector by revitalizing high-return, high-potential, and high-growth e-commerce businesses.
Orbit Innovation Hub
Orbit Innovation Hub is a digital innovation ecosystem where local talent can innovate and collaborate to address global issues in a sector-agnostic manner. The hub is a branch of Orbit Health, a leading health-tech firm in Africa that has been spearheading efforts to transform health delivery in Ethiopia. The Hub will be a platform where incubates will develop and accelerate their business ideas from ideation to product-launch stages. In doing so, the hub will provide young entrepreneurs with the network and resources they need to succeed in their respective ventures.
Kazana Group
Kazana Group is an investment group that holds a portfolio of over 13 companies operating in a diverse array of industries and sectors, notably in marketing, communications, advertisement, fintech, telecom, manufacturing, logistics, technologies, investment management & advisory, and many more. Addis Alemayehou, who invested in different startups encouraging the youth community to solve the nation's problems, holds the company.
YC, or Y Combinator
YC, or Y Combinator, is a startup accelerator and venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. It invests in startups in the whole world that solve some sort of problem. It invested in different companies in Ethiopia including BeU food delivery and Avion which develops & implements a drone-based medical supplies delivery system.
Addis Ababa Angels Network (AAA)
Addis Ababa Angels Network (AAA) is a group of individual investors whose aim is to promote economic development and sustainability in Ethiopia. They strongly believe in the transformational capacity of a strong startup ecosystem in the Ethiopian economy. Hence, the members have come together to draw on their experiences and consolidate their financial resources to back early-stage technology and tech-enabled innovative businesses.
Solve IT
Solve IT is a national innovation competition run across Ethiopia, with the main goal of decentralizing technology to build a tech-savvy community and promote the use of technology as a tool for social change and development. The competition includes five weeks of training, mentorship, boot camp, investor connections, and seed funding opportunity for the winners of the competition with no equity.
Renew Capital
Renew Capital invests in Africa’s growth-oriented small and medium enterprises and builds vibrant private sectors across Africa. It recently launched Renew Venture Lab which intends to invest $300K in Ethiopian Startups.
Bruh-ICT Competition
Bruh-ICT Competition aims to uncover concepts that showcase promise for implementation, expansion, and sustainability in the long run, and offers valuable resources, including customized training, incubation, and acceleration support services. Selected participants will also have the chance to secure a seed grant of $5000, alongside receiving continuous coaching and mentoring services.
Overall, these funding opportunities and programs aim to support Ethiopian startups in overcoming the challenges of securing investment and funding, enabling them to grow and succeed. This list is by no means exhaustive, and we hope that the number of such opportunities will grow to the point where they become too numerous to count.
