Government Schemes

• The National Youth Development Fund, The general objective of the fund is to empower youth in income generating activities by providing credit. Areas of operation it cover all districts, regions in Tanzania mainland. (More information is available in, www.hum.go.tz)
• The Agricultural Inputs Trust Fund. The main beneficiaries of the fund are all Tanzanian who engages in agricultural activities and livestock keeping in Tanzania mainland. (More information is available in www.kilimo.go.tz)
• The Presidential Trust Fund. The objective of its existence is to eradicate poverty by creating employment on self help basis and increase the incomes of the disadvantaged groups, women and youths in particular who constitute the largest active population in Tanzania. These activities are made possible through facilitation of financial services and technical support e.g. business skills and entrepreneurship training. (More information is available in www.ptftz.org)

Loans & Microfinance

• TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. They are a nonprofit organization that develops business solutions to poverty by linking people to information, capital and markets.

• Twaweza Microfinance works with traders, entrepreneurs based in Dar es Salaam
• CHIPUA is a social enterprise works with entrepreneurial minded people (youth & women) both in rural and urban settings supporting start up and existing entrepreneurs. They nurture and uplift business’s owners and their community grow while creating more jobs and become prosperous.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding allows entrepreneurs to raise (usually) small amounts of capital from a large group of individuals via the Internet to finance their business venture. In the Netherlands, the following crowd funding opportunities exist:

• Start Some Good is an online crowd-funding platform for fundraising in Africa.
• Indiegogo is a platform of crowd funding in Africa for projects of all kinds with no criteria.
• Kickstarter is an online crowd-funding platform where projects of all kinds can be funded.
• One Percent Club is a Dutch based global crowd-funding platform.
• Crowd Invest is an online crowd-funding platform. It s possible to start or create a project and to have it featured on the website in order to raise money.
• Badandu is the first African-wide crowd-funding platform.
• Sun Funder is an active crowd funding website in Tanzania
• Ecopreneurist is another active crowd funding website in Tanzania
• Social Entrepreneurs Crowd fund to Empower Women in Tanzania
• Business Course Tanzania raises funds to guarantee the participation of the students in Tanzania.

A global list of crowd funding websites is available here.

A list of the top crowd funding websites is available here.
 

Angel investments

Angel investments are typically the earliest equity investment in startup companies. Angel investors are almost always wealthy individuals and commonly band together in investor networks. Usually, those networks are based on regionally, industry, or academic affiliation.

• Tanzania Angel Investors

• Investeq Capital was founded in 2002 specifically to provide financing and financial solutions to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the African continent.

• The TBL Mirror Fund is a private Equity Fund for East African and Nigerian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) targeting various high growth sectors and deals where value can be added through the know-how and involvement of the Fund managers and its investors.

• eVaFund is the first venture capital firm investing in African SME’s active in digital media.

• Jacana Partners is a pan-African private equity company that invests in entrepreneurs, builds successful small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and delivers sustainable social and financial returns.

• East Africa Capital Partners (EACP) is a technology, media, and telecommunications sector focused Venture Capital Fund Manager investing in the greater Eastern Africa region.

• Adlevo Capital makes equity and equity-linked investments in rapidly growing private companies in various stages of development.

• Invenfin Venture Capital is a wholly –owned subsidiary group of Remgro (Pty) Ltd. And specializes in early stage venture capital funding, providing start-up capital to entrepreneurs to fund the commercialization of their intellectual property internationally.

• Fanisi Venture Capital Fund is a fund that makes direct investments in businesses with potential for substantial growth.

• The Africa Media Ventures Fund (AMVF) mobilizes capital and experience in the Netherlands to invest in entrepreneurs in the media sector and small and medium sized African media companies.

Venture capital

Venture capital refers to money invested in a project in which there is a substantial element at risk, typically a new or expanding business.

• Fanisi Venture Capital Fund is a fund that makes direct investments in businesses with potential for substantial growth.

Grants and funds

• The Development Gateway, Tanzania Business Portal has published pages of all grants related to bettering the situation of entrepreneurship in Tanzania.

• The Youth-to-Youth Fund component of the Youth Entrepreneur Facility offers local youth-led organizations an opportunity to actively participate in the development of youth entrepreneurship in their communities. It is a competitive grant scheme that supports small-scale youth entrepreneurship development projects implemented by youth-led organizations.

• The Green Entrepreneurship program (offered by Hivos) builds the capacities of rural men and women and SMEs to improve their economic position in environmentally sustainable ways with an eye to making economic development more inclusive and green.

• As part of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), USADF awarded $900,000 in 2014 to 36 of the Mandela Washington Fellows to start up or expand their social and business enterprises, aiming to impact Africa by creating jobs and new economic opportunities. USADF has committed $7.5 million over the next three years to the YALI Entrepreneurship Grants.

• The AECF is a US$ 207m challenge fund capitalized by multilateral and bilateral donors (the AECF donors) to stimulate private sector entrepreneurs in Africa to innovate and find profitable ways of improving access to markets and the way markets function for the poor, particularly in rural areas.

• The Kukua Fund has been established by RLabs and Bertha Foundation to discover and invest in Africa’s high potential Internet and mobile startups driving social change. The fund will provide micro investments to startups of up to USED 25,000, human capital and mentorship, access to networks as well as business development.

• Savannah Fund is a seed capital fund specializing in US$25,000-US$500,000 investments in early stage high growth technology (web and mobile) startups in sub-Saharan Africa.

• The Tanzania Fund liaises with the local Oxfam team in Shinyanga, who propose projects and local partner organizations to support.

• Seed Startup is an international seed investment organization which operates in Tanzania.