VC4A receives IFC ScaleX Award for Supporting Girls-led Startups to Elevate Capital

VC4A , the  ecosystem builder that leverages its infrastructure, community, and experience for the applications that contribute to the startup motion in rising markets has been honored with a prestigious IFC ScaleX award for its contribution to the assist of women-led startups in securing capital after finishing an accelerator program.

Out of the170 accelerators, VC4A was chosen among the many prime 5 by the Worldwide Finance Company (IFC), a member of the World Financial institution Group.

Loretta Foran, Head of IFC’s ScaleX Program explains, “We’re delighted VC4A has been chosen to obtain an IFC ScaleX award given the group’s profitable work to assist women-led startups entry fairness financing..”

Girls entrepreneurs face a major gender finance hole in rising markets. Solely 11% of seed funding goes to firms with a girl on their founding staff, and later stage funding figures are even decrease. This gender financing hole leads to missed alternatives for each startups and traders. To assist shut this hole, IFC and the Girls Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) launched IFC ScaleX – a world program that goals to extend entry to early-stage threat capital for women-led startups in rising markets.

Recognizing the necessity to tackle gender bias, VC4A, an entrepreneur assist group, launched a devoted showcase for women-led startups in Africa in 2022: VC4A Enterprise Showcase Africa – Girls Founder Version in 2022. The initiative goals to spotlight high-value enterprise capital alternatives and assist these startups for fulfillment. The group started showcasing rising market startups in 2017, with a concentrate on African and Latin American expertise. The showcase supplied mentorship, technical recommendation, and networking alternatives with traders to 16 girls founders of progressive, high-growth firms.

She continues: “One of many targets of IFC ScaleX is to establish and share such finest practices for different accelerators and entrepreneur-support organizations globally to study and get impressed from. For this objective, we might be publishing quick case research on every of our awardees, showcasing their work, in addition to key drivers for fulfillment.”

Ben White, founder at VC4A says: “Again in 2017, VC4A started an annual showcase of rising market startups, with a concentrate on prime expertise in Africa, and extra lately, Latin America. Girls-led startups accounted for about 20 % of showcase graduates and have already raised near $40 million in enterprise capital. We accelerated these efforts with the Girls Founder Version Africa 2022 and are actually within the means of launching Girls Founder Version LATAM 2023! The VC4A staff works so arduous and ScaleX is a good recognition for the arduous work and efforts made by them.”

The Girls Founder Version helps women-led startups achieve entry to traders particularly looking for such startups within the area. To make sure a pipeline of high quality candidates, VC4A concerned girls graduates from earlier showcases as ambassadors and integrated girls traders in this system supply. The investor neighborhood performs a key function all through the method, from referring firms to offering mentorship and technical assist. The deep hyperlinks between VC4A and the enterprise capital ecosystem have been crucial for the expansion of firms like Sayna, an edtech and expertise sourcing startup based by Matina Razafimahefa. Sayna secured $600,000 in fairness investments. One other instance is Dr. Rasha Rady, the founding father of Chefaa, a healthtech startup from Egypt. Chefaa secured $2.5 million in funding since becoming a member of the VC4A Enterprise Showcase.

In complete, women-led graduates from VC4A’s Enterprise Showcase have raised practically $40 million in capital. The subsequent showcase, centered on Latin America, is scheduled for 2023.

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