- Nearly 5,000 African entrepreneurs from across all 54 African countries will receive TEF seed capital funding of $5000
Every year on January 1st, the Tony Elumelu Foundation opens
its application portal to African entrepreneurs with businesses of less than
five years.
This year’s beneficiaries have been chosen from a pool of
over 400,000 applications, selected based on their innovative and impactful
business ideas. In line with the Foundation’s mission to catalyse
entrepreneurship in Africa, the selected beneficiaries will consist of both new
start-ups and existing young businesses in varying operational stages across
different sectors.
As part of TEF’s objectives to ensure that African
entrepreneurs are well equipped to build investable and profitable businesses,
each beneficiary has undergone world-class business management training and
mentorship conducted exclusively on TEFConnect, the Foundation’s proprietary
digital platform that provides capacity-building support, advisory and market
linkages to over 1 million Africans and counting.
The platform’s unique training curriculum covered insightful
topics such as Starting Your Business, Business Management & Fundamentals,
Leadership & Business Growth, Marketing Strategy, Product Design, and
Selecting & Building a Team, amongst others.
Commenting ahead of the Selection Announcement event, CEO
Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, said: “This year, with support
from our global partners, we will be scaling our impact and empowering nearly
5000 entrepreneurs.
A major priority for us at the Foundation for 2021 remains
the economic recovery of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) following
the Covid-19 disruption to economic activities. We are very excited to be
unveiling the 2021 cohort of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship programme. I
believe the $5,000 we are giving to each entrepreneur will address some
pressing demands and reduce the burden brought about by the pandemic.”
“Year after year, we are greatly inspired by the tenacity
and quality of business ideas that come out of Africa. This only proves that
young Africans need organisations like the Tony Elumelu Foundation who are
willing to take a chance on them and their ideas”, she concluded.
Through the US$100million TEF Entrepreneurship Programme
which launched in 2015, the Foundation empowers thousands of entrepreneurs
annually, who benefit from mentorship, business management training, access to
new markets, US$5,000 in non-refundable seed capital, and networking
opportunities to promote their businesses to a global audience.
Since the programme’s inception, TEF has trained over 1.5
million young Africans and funded over 10,000 entrepreneurs across all 54
African countries.
The Selection Announcement event will be streamed live via the Foundation’s
official YouTube channel here and our Facebook page here.
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