Phase 2: Incubation

The MEST Incubator was founded to support the overall mission of MEST by providing seed funding, guidance and support for graduates of our training program with ambitions of founding their own software companies in Ghana.

Its inception was primarily driven by the limited access to capital and access to experienced entrepreneurs/mentors for start-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for seed stage software companies. While we do not have the resources to solve this problem on a macro level, we aspire to replicate conditions similar to those in Europe or the United States for our graduates.

Investment Philosophy

Our investments are solely focused on companies started by graduates of our MEST training program, either immediately upon graduation or after gaining additional years of work experience elsewhere. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to consider investment opportunities outside of this scope due to limited resources.

Some of the criteria we use to evaluate these opportunities are:

·       Software (mostly web/mobile)

·       Viability of idea

·       International applicability

·       Potential of team to execute on business plan

The incubator provides:

·       Initial seed funding

o   Typically $30k-$300k

o   For a minority equity stake

o   ideally to provide enough runway to produce commercially viable solution & generate initial revenue

·       Office space

·       Access to a network of advisors/mentors

·       Hands-on assistance in business aspects from incubator staff

Portfolio

The incubator currently houses a number of fresh start-ups, which can be read about in more detail on our Incubator Company page.

New companies will be added as classes of EITs graduate from the MEST training program, or as MEST alumni reapply.

Contact

For questions regarding the incubator, please feel free to contact us at incubator@meltwater.org.