Small growing business

Small and Growing Business Ventures

Sparking innovative businesses to overhaul systems of poverty and inequity.

There are many ingredients in the recipe for creating change: courage, creativity, innovation and hard work. More practically, for a business to create discernible change, it requires money, support, mentorship and experience.

The Small and Growing Business channel of EWB ventures is a seed-stage investment vehicle dedicated to bringing all of those ingredients together, to create a powder keg of potential for forward-thinking businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the right support and resources, their impact echoes around the globe to improve systems and eradicate poverty.

By nurturing founding-stage enterprises with a pioneering approach to a range of challenges, Small and Growing Business ventures spark new solutions for entrenched problems. Whether untested product, delivery mechanism, technology, business model or service—the innovations are scalable, the learnings are applicable throughout global sectors.

8

Ventures

20+

Fellows

4

Follow-on investment

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When the ideas successfully scale, the impact of our Small and Growing Business Ventures can echo throughout a range of global industry sectors to touch the lives of millions.

Take the smallholder agribusiness with an innovative feed production model, now partnering with large-scale distribution networks to bring improved options to thousands of farmers. Or, the financial profiling application providing easier access to credit for growing businesses.

EWB Small and Growing Business Ventures are carefully selected to:

  • Greatly improve the livelihoods of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Reach considerable numbers of people in tangible, meaningful ways.
  • Become financially viable enterprises.
  • Attract catalyzed funding.
  • Scale services either nationally or internationally.

Like the enterprises we support, our approach is progressive.

We support ventures before any other impact investors are willing or able to get involved; as early as the concept stage.

As founding investors and partners in many ventures, EWB is well-placed to participate in the long-term value we help create, bolstering our sustainability and the potential to foster further small and growing business innovators.

Investing in Ventures


What we’re looking for.

Seed-stage, for-profit social ventures based in Sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on improving access to products or services.

If you are a small or growing enterprise pursuing a radical approach to business through new and unproven product, delivery, technology, business model, or service, we would like to hear from you.

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