Addressing Ghana’s Startup Funding Challenges

Funding is a major challenge for African Startups, more specifically Ghanaian Startups. It stems from the lack of financial products for Startups,lack of an understanding of Business Modules by Startups to be able to translate this into growth and Revenue or a viable, real financial plan/forecast/business for investment; Lack of understanding of financial products/insitutions/requirements by the Startup and how it applies to a Startup.

The lack of an understanding of commitment and risk of investment in a Startup and the general failure of systems (Banks, Trade Institutions, Private Sector et al) to support the Ecosystem. An uncoordinated ecosystem among others. There are many other factors: The Capacity and Skill of the Startup Founders to execute; an existence of structure and systems that merit funding vis a vis an implementation plan, and an understanding of the Cost components and Strategy in Acquiring clients and operations with a good articulation of a Business Plan, Product and Pitch. Today, Many Startups are redefining strategies and capacity and proposing new fundable modules.

Startup Summit 2014 a “free event” to connect Startups to Financiers and enable Financial Institutions, Investment firms, Corporate’s better understand the needs of Startups and develop financial products towards supporting #Startups is just ahead. It will feature an Exhibition | Pitch | Demo | Workshop. Each Institution will commit between GHC 50,000 and GHC 1 million to fund Startups within the next 6 months. The idea is to re-engineer Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Investments for scalable impact.

But Before then, What must be done: 1. Connect Startups to Support Systems- Advisory, Referrals, et al through an Identify, Train, Connect, Fund, Mentor module. (Capacity, Building Business Modules, Book Keeping etc of Startup Founders) 2. Prove viability and sustainability of modules of Startups, create awareness and demonstrate real growth potential of Startups for Commitments 3. A Policy approach/private sector support in building the ecosystem. 4. Syndication and… (READ MORE)