Source: Prince Appiah
An investment guide for technology entrepreneurs in Ghana has been launched to support and enhance their operations to become successful businesses.
The “Scale Up! Entrepreneur’s Guide to Investment in Ghana” is designed to provide early to mid-stage entrepreneurs operating in the tech sector with the requisite information required to navigate the Ghanaian entrepreneurial ecosystem and investment landscape.
This guide provides a map of the various financing options designed to support the entrepreneur on their fundraising journey.
Make-IT in Africa, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development was launched in Accra.
One of the key challenges for start-ups and SMEs in Ghana is access to finance.
With limited finance, entrepreneurs face the additional challenge of stringent requirements in order to qualify for the limited resources.
The guide includes diverse mechanisms such as grants, seed funds, angel investment, impact- oriented venture capital and debt.
It is necessary to empower entrepreneurs with the information required to conduct their own self-assessment on their level of investment readiness and then provide them with the tools to engage investors and guidelines on the investment process.
Experiences of some entrepreneurs and investors in Ghana have been documented to provide perspectives from both sides.
The guide also contains a directory of investors that are actively funding Ghana’s emerging tech start-ups including both local and international investors.
The directory is comprehensive including a profile, contact information, average investment size, type of capital provided, technical experience, management control, exit options and details on any other services available additional to funding.
The six-chapter guide provides elaborate information on the funding options and the different types of investors available across the Ghanaian investment scene.
The first part of the guide answers the HOW of fundraising, while the directory answers the WHO.
Author of the book who doubles as the Director of Intelligent Capital, Leticia Browne explains the book is tailored at Ghana where a lot of entrepreneurs who do not understand the investment landscape.
“Entrepreneurs are the ones that let themselves down. It is not that investors are not there, they are there but the entrepreneurs are not ready.
Often times, they haven’t prepared themselves adequately. That is what this book is for, to help them prepare themselves adequately.”
The GUIDE talks about the different funding instruments, what different training programs that are available, with a directory of 37 investors both local and international.
Leticia Browne continued that the book is a one-stop-shop for all entrepreneurs who want to raise money.
“The Entrepreneurs guide to investment in Ghana has been designed for early-stage entrepreneurs to support them as they start thinking about raising capital – how do you start with a scalable idea something that can attract capital and customers and we take them through the various funding instruments”.
The Guide was out doored at the Tech in Ghana conference 2019 to take advantage of the rich audience of the gathering.
Many entrepreneurs at the conference were excited about the resource and went home with digital copies of the document.
In addition to the launch of the investment guide, Make-IT is supporting a series of Investment Readiness Workshops across the country.
These workshops are facilitated by local ecosystem players and provide entrepreneurs with the opportunity to get one of one support on the topics covered in the guide.
Ghana has immense potential for economic growth and the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem is growing at a steady pace.
There has been an increase in investors who are willing to invest their capital in new and innovative start-ups in the country.
In order to foster growth and support more entrepreneurs in securing the required capital Make-IT Africa see this as a necessary intervention.
An official with GIZ, Emmanuel Mumuni, explains that the Make-IT in Africa project as part of BMZ’s Digital Africa Initiative seeks to unleash the creativity and potential of entrepreneurs, collaborate with the brightest minds to shape a digital future, promote digital technologies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and create new jobs and opportunities.
