We are so excited for our client, Enygma Ventures, for their recent award of the 2021 USAID CATALYZE Innovative Blended Finance Challenge for the “Investing in Women-Owned Businesses and Entrepreneurs in Southern Africa” project.
Enygma focuses on closing capital and workforce development gaps present for Women-owned businesses in Africa. It does this by primarily funding post-revenue businesses, choosing the top 2% of the approximately 1000 applications received during each open solicitation period. Enygma selects companies to invest in by collecting a pitch deck to allow the company to share a formulated idea that must be scalable and demonstrate market potential and customer demand. Capital is then deployed to each business in tranches as they achieve milestones that are unique to each business. The milestones are designated collaboratively in conjunction with building a financial model and budget with the company. This methodology allows Enygma to provide much more than investment and to offer newly formed companies strategic planning and growth financial modeling. Enygma accomplishes this by becoming board members of the companies and offering monthly meetings to discuss financials and goal planning. For example, Enygma has seed funded and is managing the online platform StartupCircles.AI, and is able to use it as a tool for increasing the size of its pipeline, allowing the company to select higher-quality candidates increasingly. It will enable Enygma to educate, train, and deal with inequality gaps in experience and knowledge through coaching and education modules. StartupCircles.AI is a paid service that allows entrepreneurs to travel at their learning speed while appropriately providing them with uniquely relevant learning for their specific journey.
We are grateful to have worked with Enygma Ventures to craft this winning proposal and to have helped facilitate investments for activities to improve opportunities for fellow Women-owned businesses worldwide.
You can also see our track record here – https://www.ebhoward.com/trackrecord/?v=7516fd43adaa
We work with high-growth startups and organizations that support the startup and innovation ecosystem. We build highly specific non-dilutive funding menus, provide proposal preparation services, and measure outcomes of funding through evaluation. Schedule a consult call with us HERE.