Africa has more female entrepreneurs than any other continent in the globe. This should mean that women drive the economy but in reality it is not so. For the most part, female-driven businesses stay at the petty-trade and self-employed level, hardly scaling to the point of engaging sufficient labour or having a significant impact on the economy.
One of the reasons for this is that they rarely have access to funding. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shecluded, Ifeoma Udoh, was a guest on the Nairametrics Business Half Hour, where she pointed out that in four years of working with a company that provided seed funding for businesses, she barely saw females come in search of funding for their businesses and it piqued her interest.
“It was puzzling to see that I hardly ever saw any female come in search of funding for businesses, especially since we know that Africa accounts for the highest number of female entrepreneurs. If they are not getting money to start or grow their business, then it is something to worry about. It simply means that the people running businesses that should drive the economy do not have access to funding,” Udoh explained.
Shecluded was founded in 2019 to open women up to funding opportunities, access to capital and business training to drive their businesses. Shecluded started out with a focus on stay-at-home moms, and later to low-income earners who wanted to go into business. Thus far, the company has been able to further define its target market to accommodate more women and intends to do more in the future.
“I started Shecluded with the primary goal of ensuring that female entrepreneurs who can do more have the resources to do more. I have learnt that capital and access to capital and financing can change people’s lives so when we started, I did not want to give women loans of N50,000 because I could not see it making much impact on them or on the economy. A person cannot scale up with a loan of N50,000 and they cannot employ others. I wanted to give them the kind of loan that would change their lives, help them to engage others, and make a visible impact in the economy around them,” Udoh explained.
Is Shecluded discriminatory? NO!
Shecluded set out to focus on a demographic that had largely been unexplored in terms of financial initiatives and services for entrepreneurial ventures.
To do this required a lot of funds, but Udoh explained that she refrained from getting funding in the first year because she wanted to firmly establish the tone of the business and get everything in place. For the first year of operation (2019), she bootstrapped with her savings, and by the second year (2020), got a funding of $100,000 to expand.
The company is already evolving into a sort of digital bank for women, as it now has a savings product based on demands. Shecluded is also currently raising more funds and intends to roll out more products before the end of 2021, and become the number one resource and financial service for women in Nigeria and Africa in the coming years.
Why women are left out of funding opportunities
The question of why women entrepreneurs were left out of funding opportunities in the first place, despite being more in number, is what Shecluded first set out to answer before providing solutions. Some of the reasons which Udoh pointed out were literacy, socio-cultural bias, and how financial services were being communicated to the women.
“If you simply offer a woman a loan, she might refuse you. But when it comes as an asset-based loan, something that would clearly improve her business, then you might get a better response. So I found out that there has been issues in the way financial services were being communicated to the women in the past,” Udoh said.
To address literacy and financial lifestyle issues, Shecluded also started advisory sessions in 2020 to teach women to have financial plans, emergency funds, investment culture and to reduce their spending on lifestyle. There were also training on digital skills, self-development, self-promotion and marketing.
“Another thing we discovered is that women entrepreneurs are mostly driven by survival. They want to be able to provide and take care of their families. I encourage women to look beyond the family and think of how their businesses can contribute to nation-building especially when they start employing others.
Any woman that sets her mind to do something will do it and do it well, so we need to expand their minds to think beyond entrepreneurship for survival and start thinking about how they can do more and be more. That is what I want to see in the next level of entrepreneurship,” Udoh stated.
This is great. But how can I access the fund at shecluded? I have two businesses but fund is a huge challenge to growing it.
This is such a great initiative to help women scale up and have access to most needed information in their business. How does it work?. I’m the CEO of a fashion /training institute based in delta state
Young but big vision.
I was there for interview.
How can I get access to this funding? I need
it for my business to grow
Wow! I also has this vision of not to just be an entrepreneur but to also expand and impacts other women too. How do I access the fund at shecluded?
Hi, this is good doing business with little capital and family too is not easy. How can I access this fund for my business and other women if possible.
How do I have access to Shecluded business loan? I need it for expansion… Thanks.
Wonderful opportunity unknown. Help me to be one of your announcers. I have a school and a cooperative agric processing and marketing outfits. They are promising but funding is the barrier. A grant or a soft loan of £100,000 and above will give us a miraculous leap. How can I access your funding opportunities. May you be lifted higher for greater lifting of mothers.