Innohub Foundation

Our vision at Innohub is to be Africa's world class business accelerator. As an accelerator, a major success factor is to be able to provide seed funding to businesses we work with so that based on the demonstrated traction, we are able to match them to other sources of capital for follow-on funding.

At the moment, we have provided Technical Assistance to a number of businesses through our initiatives like the Women-In-Climate Accelerator, Agritech Investment Readiness Program and the Innohub Venture Lab. We are fundraising to be able to deploy capital into some of the small and growing businesses supported.

I apply for Elevate Prize so I could use the Elevate Prize funding for the following:

1. $200,000 for an Innohub-managed seed fund called the "DIBA CHALLENGE FUND" as a means to providing cash investments as seed investments for businesses we have supported.
2. $50,000 will be used by Innohub to support the provision of business acceleration to more small and growing businesses.
3. $30,000 will be channeled into charity initiatives I support among poor communities in Accra. 
4.  $20,000 will be dedicated towards my personal development as a business leader of deep competence, research and publications on my chosen industry.

In a Business Model Innovation at the BoP class in 2011 at the London School of Economics (LSE), I developed an interest in how businesses could be use as a force for driving social development. This birthed Innohub dream, incorporated in the same year and successfully launched operations in 2015, as a business accelerator and impact investment platform that supports small and growing businesses to become sustainable, scalable and investment ready. 

My life's purpose is to support young entrepreneurs in emerging and developing economies to translate their passion into reality, helping them scale sustainably and connecting them to the much needed resources for growth and impact. To achieve desired results, I led my team to set up the following vehicles to complement the work of Innohub Foundation:

1. We established Wangara Green Ventures, an SME fund that invest in climate-focused SMEs in Ghana.
2. Established Accra Angels Network to catalyze early stage investments for startups.
3. Established Marvel Marketing to provide markets development support to businesses.

In the next five years, I seek to scale up the operations of Innohub across five African countries and raise enough funds to be able to provide more support and investments in small and growing businesses. 

Landscape for Impact Investing in West Africa Report by the Global Impact Investing Network in 2015 cited the lack of investable enterprises as one of the barriers to impact investing in Ghana. According to the report, Investors in Ghana struggle to find enterprises that fit their financial and impact criteria and that are also robust enough to support investment. Critical gaps in human capital and business support lead to a lack of business systems, governance, and professional management on the part of enterprises. With these challenges, Small and Growing Businesses struggle to attract investment capital to drive their growth.

According to the 2015 Venture Finance in Africa report by Venture for Africa, ventures participating in acceleration programs secure higher median and average amounts of capital than ventures that do not. Such secure on average USD 126,090 in external investment, according to research by VC4A. This is 23% more than their counterparts who do not participate in such programs. 

Innohub is a business accelerator and impact investment platform that supports small and growing businesses in emerging economies to become sustainable, scalable and investment ready. We address the identified barriers to impact investing, supporting businesses to be able to unlock investment capital.

In addressing the two-sided challenges faced by SGBs in finding investments and that of investors in finding investment-ready opportunities, we have designed innovative models of support that has fully taken this demand and supply side into consideration, as well as various other actors such as the sponsors of Enterprise Support initiatives, mostly being Foundations and DFIs. Our model is further explained below:

• Approaches in working with the demand side: Unlike other cohort based, group focused accelerator programs, we have designed enterprise support programs which address the core needs of businesses we support through robust business diagnostics and responsive growth plans tailored to address the business gaps. Our support has helped our SGBs better articulate their growth plans and investment requirements. This presents us an an ideal pipeline partner for investors.

• Building, and partnering with the supply side Investment Sources: With a deep appreciation of the funding gap, we are building various funding vehicles (such as Accra Angels Network and Wangara Green Ventures Capital), as well as building partnerships with various capital sources like traditional banks and impact investment firms.

• Partnerships with Enterprise Support Program sponsors: We continue to build various partnerships to ensure funding for our SGB support programs.

Our theory of change posits that:

Activities: If Innohub supports SMEs in Ghana and Africa with training, business development support and access to funding and markets, through our Training, Incubator and Accelerator programs, and other initiatives, 

Outputs: Then these businesses will have improved management capacity, enhanced growth potential and become investment ready, which will catalyze them to unlock new investment capital, 

Outcomes: To upscale their operational and production capacity, 

Impact: Leading to the promotion of sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work, particularly for women, youth and the marginalized.

The above theory of change reflects our route to impact i.e. supporting businesses that demonstrate high growth and high impact potential to scale their business operations through our business acceleration and investor matching support. The effectiveness of our approach is evidenced by the fact that these businesses impacting humanity in sectors like food security, education, health, climate change, commerce, etc, contributing to national development and creating jobs for young people.