Two weeks to deadline of Village Capital’s accelerator program

Time for Applying for Village Capital’s accelerator program, Village Capital FinTech for Agriculture: East Africa 2015, is quickly running out as applications are only open for another 2 weeks.

Applications are currently open, and will be accepted through to February 25, 2015. The selected applicants will be announced at the end of March 2015.

• Submissions with the best chances of being selected will be required to have the following:
• Innovations that improve access to payments, financial security, accounting, cash management, credit, loans, cash advances, or other financial services for smallholder farmers or agribusinesses;
• First-to-market innovations in the agricultural sector;
• Ventures that increase access to financial services in agriculture, or for which smallholders or agribusinesses represent part or their entire customer base;
• Technologies that formalize informal markets, increase the efficiency of the agricultural supply chain, improve business that serve smallholder farmers, and/or build wealth for smallholder farmers, low-wealth households, or individuals;
• Innovations that provide affordable extensions of credit, loans, cash advances or other financial services to financially underserved households, smallholder farmers or businesses in the agricultural value chain;
• Technologies that extend traditional financial services: (savings, credit, loans and insurance) to financially underserved households, individuals or businesses in alternative ways.The program was launched at the beginning of the year through Village Capital’s partnership with The MasterCard Foundation and Duncan Goldie-Scot.It will select 12 start-up firms for business development training.
• The aim is to unlockinnovations that increase access to financial services for smallholder farmers.

At the end of the program, the two start-ups ranked highest by other entrepreneurs in the program will each receive US $ 50,000 to help scale their businesses and impact.

The initial 12 enterprises will be chosen on the basis of how their ideas can increase incomes for smallholder farmers by improving their access to financial services.

Typically, smallholder farmers in East Africa cannot participate in the mainstream economy because they lack access to financial services as a result of their location, their lack of financial literacy, and other barriers.

Village Capital FinTech for Agriculture: East Africa 2015plans to meet this need by supporting the best local early-stage ventures increasing financial inclusion in the East African agriculture industry, benefitting smallholder farmers, investors, communities, and entrepreneurs in the region.

Village Capital will provide selected ventures with intensive business development training, mentorship from local business leaders and investors, and face-to-face interaction with potential customers.

Ross Baird, Executive Director of Village Capital, highlighted the significance of this program: “Village Capital connects the best early-stage entrepreneurs to real customer needs across the world, and smallholder farmers in East Africa need access to quality financial services. Together with The MasterCard Foundation, we are addressing this problem by training local start-ups to scale their impact to benefit local farmers.”