The African Development Bank's Fashionomics Africa call for proposals invites African fashion, textile, apparel and accessories entrepreneurs and businesses to apply and benefit from Fashionomics Africa's online incubator and accelerator programmes.
The programmes will run for 8 weeks each and content will be available in English, French, Arabic and Portuguese. Through a competitive process, the best fashion entrepreneurs will be invited to pitch their business ideas in online competitions at the Fashionomics Africa pitch days.
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Fashionomics Africa is an African Development Bank initiative that aims to increase Africa's participation in global textile, apparel and accessories value chains. The aim is to support the growth of the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that dominate this industry, by equipping them with the necessary business skills, financial acumen, market access, market intelligence and financing opportunities to grow their businesses in an increasingly digitalised economy.
The initiative launches the Fashionomics Africa online incubator and accelerator programmes to create sustainable business models and access funding opportunities. The programme and content will be structured into separate incubator and accelerator programmes, focused on improving the marketability of early-stage (incubator) and growth-oriented (accelerator) start-ups to financiers with an emphasis on strengthening business and financial models, investment readiness, branding, marketing, digitalisation, sustainability and circular economy applied to the industry, and outlining preparations for the capital raising process through detailed courses on entrepreneurial finance.
Benefits
- The programmes will result in 12 selected finalists from each of the incubator and accelerator programmes competing for the top 4 prizes of USD 20,000 each to scale up their operations.
Eligibility criteria
- The competition is open to participants who can provide an identification document such as a passport, national identity card or voter's card issued in an African country and/or domiciled in African countries.
- Applicants must be aged 18 or over. Priority will be given to young people (aged 18-35) and to fashion companies run by women.
- All fashion micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) or fashion entrepreneurs operating in the fashion ecosystem, including, but not limited to, fashion design and tailoring, accessories design and manufacturing, textile design, fashion illustration, fashion photography, technology-based fashion companies and service providers whose main area of interest is fashion are invited to apply.
Specific selection criteria
- Fashion business entities less than three (3) years old, registered or unregistered.
- Fashion companies have at least deployed a proof of concept, at micro, small or medium level.
- The application provides a clear, detailed description of the fashion company.
- Entities must be officially registered as a company in the African country of operation.
- The fashion company / start-up must be at the growth stage (must have been in existence for at least 3 years, have solid traction with clear product and sales channels and a customer base).
For more information, please visit Incubator and accelerator programmes .
English (UK) 
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