A panel has started adjudicating the final proposals of the 14 Enterprises Support Organizations (ESO) vying for the chance to incubate the next cohort of startups under the Entrepreneurship Hub and Seed Financing Facility.
The ESOs made their final presentations at a pitching session on Tuesday.
The presentations came just weeks after the ESOs had a week-long capacity-building and study tour in South Africa.
Five ESOs will be selected to incubate fifty enterprises (start-ups and innovative SMEs) that will receive seed funding and business support services under the Competitiveness and Financial Inclusion (CAFI)’s Entrepreneurship Hub and Seed Financing Facility. Each ESO will incubate ten enterprises.
Each enterprise will receive a US$7 000-grant and six months of incubation that includes training, mentorship, coaching and advisory service.
Mamashiya Ntsepeng Tsita-Tikiso, the manager of the Entrepreneurship Hub and Seed Financing Facility, said Tuesday’s session was meant to give each ESO an opportunity to explain their pitch in detail.
Tsita-Tikiso said the panel is looking for ESOs whose vision, skills, ideas and methods align with the hub’s ultimate goal for the enterprises.
“This is because under the project the ESOs are essentially an extension of the Entrepreneurship Hub and Seed Financing Facility. They are helping to build innovative and sustainable businesses to a level where such businesses can eventually scale and create job opportunities. That is the hub’s mission,” Tsita-Tikiso said.
She said the hub is looking for ESOs ready to deliver in terms of the selection of high-value enterprises.
“We are looking for innovation and creativity. We are looking for ESOs that provide a complete package of business support services to the entrepreneurs,” Tsita-Tikiso said.
“So in addition to the mentoring, training and coaching, the ESO should have the capacity to provide mental health support to the entrepreneurs.”
“We are also looking for ESOs that have entrepreneurs within their team so that they impart their knowledge and experiences to the enterprises they are incubating.”
“It is also critical for the ESO to prove their ability to connect entrepreneurs to a network that will add high value to their business.”
The selected ESOs will start working with the second cohort whose incubation starts in June.
The hub will select other ESOs that will incubate the third cohort expected to start in August.
So far, five ESOs are incubating the first 50 start-ups.
Tsita-Tikiso said the first cohort has taught the hub a lot about the value that ESOs bring to enterprise development.
“We are appreciating the kind of input we need from the ESOs to build successful, resilient, sustainable and innovative businesses.” The US$52.5 million CAFI project is funded by the World Bank and the Lesotho government. The project is founded on three mutually reinforcing pillars: Enhancing Financial Inclusion and Resilience of MSMEs, Scaling Support for Entrepreneurship and MSMEs, and Project Management Support
