Digital fintech company, Carbon has just launched its Disrupt Fund of $100,000 to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs on the African continent. With this, innovative companies from different sectors can benefit from this whopping opportunity.
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The aim of the fund is to enable entrepreneurs to leverage its growing customer base and innovative technology platform and help them get to the market faster.
Therefore, if you are an entrepreneur aiming to grow your customer base, here is an opportunity for you. Entrepreneurs.ng aims to inspire, educate and provide information that help businesses thrive.
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About The Disrupt Fund
The Disrupt Fund is the first of its kind from the Digital African fintech company. With this, Carbon aims to invest $10,000 per startup for 5 percent equity, with access to its Application Programming Interface (API). Carbon will also provide mentorship as well as give companies access to its office space in Lagos.
The Disrupt Fund will be invested in sectors like insurance, health, and education. Also, it will invest in other sectors that have not seen as much investment as the fintech space. Stating the reason for investing in the chosen sector, Carbon has this to say: “for the fourth time in as many years, funding for African fintech firms comfortably outstripped all whatever investments went into other sectors, not that these non-fintech firms don’t hold as much, or perhaps, even more promise.
Carbon’s Disrupt fund has been developed to tackle this disparity head-on, making it easier for entrepreneurs across all sectors to access the funds and support they need to establish their solutions and achieve business objectives.”
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Reason For The Disrupt Fund
Commenting on the rationale behind the decision to invest in other sectors, Chijioke Dozie, CEO/co-founder of Carbon, said there’s a lot more merit in collaborations and deliberate partnerships.
“Common investor wisdom is to stay in your market and dominate. This assumes that you are expanding on your own, but we believe that by collaborating and partnering deliberately, Carbon and other tech companies can scale faster and build more enduring platforms. There are many excellent companies across the continent looking for the kind of scale Nigeria offers. Therefore, we are excited to partner with them to provide the support and financial investment they need.” Chijioike Dozie
Ngozi Dozie, the co-founder of Carbon, also disclosed; “the investing environment for early-stage startups has improved in recent years. However, a key issue for most startups that has not been addressed is the cost of customer acquisition.
A lot of money is spent on acquiring customers, mainly via social media, when a more collaborative approach among tech companies could be more efficient.
Our fund will enable this collaboration, allowing others to market to our customer base and vice versa – a win-win for everyone. As the saying goes, ‘if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
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About Carbon
Carbon is one of the fintech companies with footprints in payments, loans, savings/investments, and a host of other digital financial services. It was launched in 2016, and since then, has amassed over 2.1 million users. It disbursed over $63.7 million in loans in 2019 and processed more than $140 million in transactions.
In 2019, it launched Carbon for Business, a platform that serves small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It provides SMEs with access to uncollateralized credit, secure online payments, reliable funds transfer, and fast KYC (know your customer) compliance obligations. Also, businesses through it can receive online payments from Visa, Verve, and Mastercard in over 40 currencies.
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Eligibility Criteria To Apply For The Disrupt Fund
This opportunity is for companies operating in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Cote D’Ivoire, and Egypt. Also, startups looking to apply for the fund must have a functioning product, post revenue and be open to the idea of operating in multiple countries.
Also, businesses in insurance, health, and education sectors which have not seen as much investment as the fintech space can apply.
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All you need is to upload your pitch deck. It must contain a short summary of your company, team, profile, management accounts and any additional supporting documents you would like to share. Go here to apply.
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