the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General says (here): “Better data is the indispensable scaffolding that supports progress across all the SDGs,” and the UN and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data have checked this and tell us (here) that there is “an average return of $32 for every $1 invested in strengthening data systems in low and middle income countries.”
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
As we reach the end of our four-parter look at the investing and funding world and how we can gain more of it, here, here, and here, so this weekend we dive into why collecting data on the jobs we have created, the wages we pay, the lives we have changed is so important, and why now is the best time to start.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
It is one thing to complain and be grumpy about the rounding error that is the amount of funding that goes into women’s businesses in Africa, but as we stated last week (here) we believe the answer may lie instead in highlighting the benefits to the investors, and their own investor base in having a more diverse team and with that a stronger portfolio made up of more female-founded companies.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
The VC numbers for Africa in 2023 were released a few weeks ago and, as usual, the dial for women just doesn’t seem to be moving. As the brilliant data crunchers at ‘Africa: The Big Deal’ show (here), male and all male funding teams in 2023 as with other years, continued to raise around 85% of the entire funding, that’s not only equity but also debt and grants. Women and all women founding teams raised a rounding error, 2.3% to be exact, with only 13% going to gender diverse ones. Their article is headed: “2023 Deep-rooted gender imbalance” and deep-rooted it is. We just can’t seem to shake off these 2% levels.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Marie Curie, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and then Chemistry in 1911, (see here for information on this incredible Scientist) is said to have once remarked: “Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood…”, and we have to admit that try as we might, we cannot understand the reasons for, let alone fathom the pain and suffering that 2023 brought to many millions across the globe. If Diplomacy really is the art of restraining power, as Henry Kissinger, the 56th U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. National Security Advisor and winner of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize said, then we have to suggest that in 2023, ‘diplomacy’ failed.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
One of the many joys of working at Lionesses of Africa is that we have membership in so many different industries, from Fashion and Beauty, to Security, to Health, to Agro-processing, to Construction, to Road Building, to PR and Marketing, to Tech in its many forms, to…, no day is the same. There are also a number of Lionesses who have built and are building marketplaces. Not so simple as we might think. There are so many issues to think about - and assumptions that will be hopeless and overnight just wipeout their dream. Here’s a hint - ‘If I build it, they will come’, never works. Welcome to the world of the Chicken and the Egg.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
We often work with Lionesses who have come up against the usual funding brick walls (no need to repeat, regular readers will know what we are talking about. New readers? Do we have a treat for you - see here one of our many articles highlighting the iniquities of finance!), and who need a helping hand.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Regular readers of this column will recognise that it is highly unusual for us to review books here. We quote to illustrate points we wish to make and then draw people to where they can buy such books to support the authors, but review? Never. That is until now, so pour yourself a Coffee or cup of Tea, and enjoy!
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Working as we do across all industries we often fall into the trap of generalising, assuming that what works well in one industry automatically delivers in another. If we group these further and say, split our membership neatly between the Manufacturers (the agricultural, manufacturing and mining worlds) and those in the Service Industry (take a bow, those who have built Consulting, Marketing, PR, Accounting and Law firms), there is so much advice within the great management books that has been written with Manufacturing in mind that cannot jump across the divide into the Service space, but why is this? Milton Friedman said: “The business of a business is business”, so just how different can these industries be?
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
The last few weekends we have returned to a common undercurrent in many of our articles written almost weekly since early 2020, namely the tremors hitting the world and rushing towards our beautiful businesses (our most recent here and here). From Covid warnings in early articles, or the Ever Given container ship blocking the Suez Canal (here) it’s been almost a continuous fear of the next thing to hit us, up to the present day, where supply chains are still stretched; inflation and interest rates are high (and very ‘sticky'); US$ debt of many African countries still too large and with higher interest rates now impacting our daily lives, all US$ being sucked out of the economies to pay the growing interest bills; global warming is of course omni-present and looms over us…it seems to go on and on. With all of this we could certainly be forgiven for looking at these storms and simply shutting up shop and finding a shady spot under a Baobab tree from which to rest out our days.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Marc Andreessen of the massively successful Tech investment fund ‘a16z’ likes to joke that the best thing about startups is that they “only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.” (See here).
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
It was mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz who noted when studying and modelling the creation of Tornados that minute changes in initial conditions created significantly different outcomes in storms many miles if not countries and continents away. He likened these minute changes to a seagull flapping its wings and this vibration change in the surrounding air being the tiny difference that set either the Tornado off, or changed its direction. Luckily for our poetic sensibilities, he was persuaded to ditch the Seagull and write about a Butterfly fluttering its wings instead, and so in a lecture he gave in December 1972 he used the expression: “a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas.”, and the rest (as they say) became history.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
It was without doubt one of our finest moments, persuading Melanie to give us the time off, and on behalf of the greater Lioness community we headed off into southern Italy for a road trip. Stopping off in many restaurants (all in the name of research, of course) we drove around the beautiful countryside allowing us a deep look into a part of Italy often missed by the tourist books. Covered as it is in breathtaking views, steeped in culture and of course, amazing produce from the land, it is an area of the world well worth a visit. What we also noticed sadly was the slow death of hilltop towns as the youth vote with their feet, and head to the big cities in the North to search for the roads ‘paved with gold’ and of course meaningful jobs.
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Partnership agreement signing between Melanie Hawken, founder & CEO of Lionesses of Africa and Farshida Zafar, Director of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship
Impact Partnership Launch
On a mission to address the data gap that exists on better understanding high-growth women's entrepreneurship in Africa, particularly on access to funding, Lionesses of Africa BV (a 1.7 million strong network of women entrepreneurs in Africa) and Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship BV (ECE) have launched a new long-term strategic partnership. At an official signing ceremony on 28 September 2023 at the Rotterdam headquarters of ECE, the two partners announced the new partnership. It will kick off with a collaborative research project in the form of a quantitative and qualitative dashboard and report, highlighting the characteristics and drivers of Africa's high-growth women entrepreneurs and providing actionable insights to help bridge the gender gap, especially in the financial landscape.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“Market matters most; neither a stellar team nor fantastic product will redeem a bad market. Markets that don’t exist don’t care how smart you are.” - Marc Andreesen, founder of ‘a16z’ fund.
It is incredible just how many entrepreneurs forget this basic lesson. Invent a product that is the greatest, the most beautiful, most perfect, it solves every issue, so much so that it seems to have been touched by the gods, has been dipped into the river of eternal life, shines and sparkles like nothing seen before (think you get the idea)…yet has no market - it will simply remain a product with no market. That’s it. Dull as ditch water. The thing that will move? Your bank balance, and believe us when we say, not in the right direction!
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Well, Andy Warhol got that wrong, didn’t he - no one these days has that long an attention span! But he did come very close and with the advent of the internet, ‘fame’ has become a real possibility for all of us. And so we dream of joining the Creative Economy, getting a zillion ‘hits’ overnight and earning a $million, all before our first pot of coffee in the morning. That is not only Fame, but serious Power as you then start to influence others…
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by Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa
Attention quite rightly gets focused on creating greater access to funding for Africa's women entrepreneurs in growth mode, but getting access to markets is just as important. After all, you have a sustainable business with a continual flow of customers and sales. We see many women business owners who have created world-class products and brands but need help accessing new markets, particularly in Europe. They need to get into the game of reaching these more significant markets, allowing them to expand their horizons and take their businesses to the next level. Start-Up Night Africa in The Netherlands is part of our strategic approach at Lionesses of Africa to create a gateway to important market opportunities in the country and across European markets for the high-growth potential women entrepreneurs in our 1.7 million-strong community.
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by Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa
The challenge of accessing much-needed investment, European markets, technical knowledge and strategic partnerships by Africa’s high-growth potential women entrepreneurs was a key focus for discussion at Start-Up Night Africa in The Hague on 11 July 2023. With first hand knowledge of the challenge, Lionesses of Africa, an impact driven social impact organization with over 1.7 million women entrepreneurs across the African continent, set-up the Start-Up Night Africa event in The Hague with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Netherlands and the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank (FMO).
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by Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa
Women entrepreneurs are an incredible force for economic and social change in Africa. And why do we believe this? It’s simple: women entrepreneurs are powerful change agents.
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by Melanie Hawken, founder and ceo, Lionesses of Africa
The important role of investment and the power of partnerships to address the gender finance gap for women entrepreneurs in growth mode in Africa was a key agenda topic at the Start-Up Night Africa event on 11 July 2023 in The Hague. The event aimed to showcase high-growth, women-owned businesses from Africa and connect them to investment and new market opportunities in The Netherlands.
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