Win $100K Towards an Sub-Sahara African Business

A new program from USAID is offering 10-20 matching grants of between $50,000 and $100,000 each for start-up and existing businesses that are partnerships between US-based African diaspora and Africa-based enterprises.

The African Diaspora Marketplace is a business plan competition designed to promote economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating diaspora direct investment (DDI) in viable small and medium enterprises.

Now there are three main requirements for this business plan competition:

  1. One member must be of African decent, living in the USA, with a 25% ownership of the enterprise
  2. The enterprise must be in of the key sub-Saharan countries of the focus grant
  3. The winners must match the grant award with their own investment in the enterprise

And while your company need not be already registered to apply, you'll need to become legally incorporated in the target country before advancing to the final round of the competition.

But you better hurry - the competition closes on July 30, 2009

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Posted by Wayan Vota on July 20, 2009
Wayan Vota's picture

Wayan Vota

Inveneo

Wayan Vota is a technology expert focused on appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT) for rural and underserved areas of the developing world. He is a Senior Director at Inveneo and is the editor of ICTworks

Comments

Win $100K Towards an

Submitted by David (not verified) on Tue, 07/21/2009 - 12:53

I am interested in this. I want to start a business in Ghana for software development. Do you know if we need a USA partner?

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Win $100K Towards an

Submitted by Wayan Vota on Sat, 08/15/2009 - 01:06

Wow, the inaugural African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) collected 733 business proposals, of which ADM will award matching grants of between $50,000 and $100,000 to approximately 10-20 small-and-medium businesses with the strongest proposals for boosting economic opportunity and job creation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The initial business proposals will undergo review by a panel of independent reviewers, and finalists will be announced in late October 2009.

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2009/pr090813.html

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Congrats to the winners

Submitted by Wayan Vota on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 18:43

Congratulations to the sixty finalists for the African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM), with proposals representing more than $22 million of diaspora business investment to spur job creation in Africa:

African Diaspora Marketplace 60 Finalists

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