The Innovation Village, which is an incubation hub in Uganda is launching a start-up fund called “The 97”, this will focus on start-ups that find it difficult to secure early stage investment. The fund will have a combination of individual and institutional investors.
“For a long time, a standard approach to nurturing innovators has been through innovation competitions and award ceremonies,” said Innovation Village. But, these “focus on the top 3 winners out of 100 submissions”.
“In trying to answer what happens to the 97 ventures, we built The Innovation Village to be a destination they call home.” Thus, the fund will continue with that vision of providing support to that group.
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“The entrepreneur we are looking for is one whose venture or idea might not get to see the light of day if we don’t intervene,” said Innovation Village founder, Japheth Kawanguzi.
The fund is at formalization stage and they are already in talks with investors.
According to Japheth, “The 97” is different for now. “It is an open-ended fund, not your typical $10M to $20M fund. That is because it is our first fund and we are experimenting a lot.”
As an early stage fund, the funding provided will go towards prototyping. They will thus be looking to write ticket sizes not more than $100,000.
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