SMEs Incubator
Valens Emerging Markets in partnership with Management International University (MIU). MIU is opening an online school to provide affordable online education in Entrepreneurship, Business and Management to students. In developing countries, MIU - in collaboration with institutions on the ground - is delivering its courses free of charge. MIU also provides technical assistance to these institutions with limited internet access and technology to provide students with the opportunities to learn about business as well as to equip students with the technical proficiency they need to succeed in their own ventures or in the world of work.
MIU prides itself in creating courses that are both theoretical sound and pratically minded. This is why the course's final assignment requires students to develop and defend a business plan. For the best business plans, MIU is able to provide incubator services to the businesses. As a result of our partnership with MIU, these incubator services will also be availlable to SMEs that are part of the VEM portfolio.
Portfolio - Cameroon
WALKIWI
Cameroon has struggled to increase formal sector capacity and therefore is unable to absorb young and skilled graduates desperately looking for opportunities. To address the worrying level of youth unemployment in the country, Cameroonian founder Junior Kamla has developed an innovative tech platform to connect professionals to those in need of their service. This mobile app has been designed to use less than 2mb of memory space and to work offline. The platform also mitigates language barriers by offering translation tools for users.
WE CASH UP
800 million people remain unbanked on the African continent. This greatly limits financial transactions and SMEs. We Cash Up has created a payment gateway that uses AI and Blockchain to enable digital companies to accept all types of payments thus enabling merchants to accept Cash, Mobile Money, Bank mobile wallets, Cards and Cryptocurrency payments. We Cash Up has already enabled thousands of users in 27 countries on the continent and 27 other countries globally via a single API integration and they intend to reach many more.