A total of 176 entrepreneurs have received a grant of GH¢3.1 million under the Enhancing Growth in New Enterprises (ENGINE) initiative of TechnoServe.
Some of the recipients are start-ups, while others are small-scale enterprises that will use the grant to expand their businesses.
The programme has also initiated processes to establish an alumni association for the entrepreneurs to encourage networking and also promote business to business (B2B) transactions to enhance access to market benefits.
The Programme Director of ENGINE, Mr Samuel Baba Adongo, disclosed this at an investors and financial dialogue in Accra.
He said his outfit would graduate another group of 100 entrepreneurs at the end of September to bring the total number of businesses TechnoServe has trained to 276.
He observed that since the launch of ENGINE in April 2014, 176 entrepreneurs had received awards in various forms with additional 100 businesses expected to receive grants and technical assistance from the programme by the end of the year.
He said 74 of those entrepreneurs had also been linked and received various forms of support from financial institutions, with 42 completing and submitting applications for financial support.
Dialogue session
ENGINE held the second edition of its financial dialogue session in Accra in order for the entrepreneurs to establish relationship and close deals with some selected financial institutions present at the event.
The session provided the entrepreneurs the opportunity to network and also initiate the development of a new portfolio in the MSE sector, while creating a network of investors and financiers who can provide credit facilities to support the sector under the programme.
In this regard, the entrepreneurs were made aware of the processes required in obtaining MSE loans, private equity and impact funds, basic insurance products for start-ups as well as the creation of investor network pool for future deal considerations.
The session attracted 29 participating institutions and investors from the banking sector, savings and loans companies, impact funds, private equity firms, venture capital firms, micro-finance institutions and other specialised funding agencies.
The financial institutions commended the United Kingdom (UK) government for supporting an initiative that provides cash and “in-kind” awards in the form of Seed Capital and Aftercare Support Services to entrepreneurs.
The intervention, according to them, would allay the fears of providing credit facilities to entrepreneurs, who were mostly start-ups and, therefore, required some basic collateral, which had been catered for through the provision of seed capital under the programme.
Source: Graphic