Hi-Innovator is an initiative aimed at supporting youth, Small and Medium-sized Businesses to sustainably grow through entrepreneurship education, funding, and technical support. Hi-Innovator is an initiative of Uganda’s National Social Security Fund (NSSF) that has established a start-up fund aimed at identifying and supporting Uganda’s small & growing businesses that have potential for great impact, sustainable and can be scaled.
Requirements
- Employees of NSSF, Outbox, other selected partner entrepreneurship support organisations and any individual involved in the Hi-Innovator program design, production, promotion, execution, distribution and any such individual’s immediate family or household, are not eligible to participate in this initiative.
- Your application must be submitted through the Hi innovator website and idea management system. Applications received by email, WhatsApp or in person will not be accepted.
- The business should at least have launched a product or service to market and received early customer feedback with some revenue (at least UGX 20 Million in the previous two years).
- The business should have been legally and actively operational for at least two years and should not have raised more than UGX 1 billion in either grant, convertible grants, venture capital or Private Equity at the time of submission.
- You must have a fully registered business with Uganda Registry Services Bureau (URSB), Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and The National Social Security Fund (NSSF).
- The Hi-Innovator initiative requires founder participation. All founding team members must commit to fully participate in at least 90% of the scheduled learning labs, and mentorship sessions in the initiative. Founding team members not fully committed to the initiative will not be accepted in the initiative, and their removal may render the remaining team ineligible for the program.
- All team members must be fully proficient in written and spoken English.
- You must be a Ugandan national OR a non-national currently living and working in Uganda with up-to-date work permits. Non-Ugandans should be running a business that includes a Ugandan in an ownership and decision-making role to be considered.
Founding teams of individuals that are above 18 years of age at the time of the application and who are resident in Uganda. The initiative will only accept teams of at least 2 founding individuals. A team of one founding individual will not be considered.
The Benefits
- Access to free professional & technical assistance throughout the process
- Availability of funding to grow your business
- Access & exposure to investors to scale your business
How it works.
The business ecosystem focuses on access to entrepreneurial knowledge, mentoring, funding, and technical assistance to help you build capacity within your Small or Medium-sized Business.
Step 1
ASSESS YOUR NEEDS
Express your interest in receiving our funding & technical assistance.
Step 2
JOIN OUR PRE-ACCELERATOR
The pre-accelerator is the first step in the Hi-innovator initiative. It consists of a self-directed online learning platform with applied exercises to enable you to apply the skills you are learning to your business. The pre-accelerator enables entrepreneurs to prepare for the next phase of support known as the accelerator.
Step 3
ACCELERATE & PITCH
The accelerator is a six-month business support process where you receive funding, technical assistance, business development, business training and market development support to enable you to grow your business. It is the second phase in your Hi-innovator journey.
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