Innovative Ventures has announced the opening of application to its third round of its tech accelerator. The Hargeisa, Somaliland acceleration program is calling out to all startups in the region to apply for the next corhort of startups to participate in the program and win $30,000. The acceleration program will sieve through the applicants list and get the top 12 who will then embark incubation and acceleration.
“Running the accelerator program for 3 years has been a learning experience for out team at Innovative Ventures. We’re constantly tuning the program to the needs of the entrepreneurs in this part of the world and overcoming challenges particular to the environment here,” said Warda Diri, co-founder of Innovative Ventures.
“This is what I believe makes the Innovative Accelerator, not just the first of its kind, but the best suited program to startup development in the region.”
This program is aimed at supporting young entrepreneurs from both the Somaliland and Somalia. So far, the program has seen 25 startups graduate through its acceleration process and the startups gained a total of $50,000.
Innovative Ventures has partnered with VC4A, Oxfam, and Telesom to roll out its new Work In Progress program. The acceleration program will run for 12 weeks and will compromise of mentorship and training opportunities. The training will entail the startups being exposed to domain experts and entrepreneurs and seed investors that will select out the top four best startups from the Innovate Ventures Fund.
All interested startups are required to submit their applications online. The startups must come from either Somalia or Somaliland and the entrepreneurs must be 35 years old and younger. The program will pick the top 20 startups to proceed to the next stage of the acceleration proces; which will be a one-week boot came event from which 12 top startups will be selected to go to the 12-week acceleration program. The program will be based in Hargeisa, Somaliland.
The top four startups, which will be chosen during the Demo Day, will get $30,000 worth of investment. The application window will open April 6th and close June 15th.