The Women’s Investment Club (WIC) is a private equity firm founded by a group of women leaders in Senegal. Dedicated to small businesses, it aims to meet the financial, technical and operational challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in French-speaking West Africa.
The Women’s Investment Club is the first fund dedicated to women entrepreneurs in the French-speaking part of West Africa. The company based in Dakar in Senegal brings together the savings of 80 women as well as those of financial partners, to put them at the service of female entrepreneurship.
The president of WIC Capital, Thiaba Camara Sy, explains that the decision to constitute themselves with other women in an investment structure was taken on International Women’s Day in 2015. Together, they thought of creating a funds to provide solutions to the financial, technical and operational challenges facing women entrepreneurs in French-speaking West Africa.
In Senegal, access to finance for women entrepreneurs is often restricted to traditional financial mechanisms such as banks and microfinance institutions. Less than 4% of them have access to bank credit. In addition, the lack of platforms providing capacity building and technical assistance hinders the development of businesses started by women.
To provide adequate solutions to these various problems, WIC Capital was created in March 2019, and brings together financial resources to invest between $ 50,000 and $ 250,000 in micro and small businesses in all sectors, majority owned or led by women in Senegal and other countries in French-speaking West Africa.
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In the long term, the leaders of WIC Capital aim to identify and develop a portfolio of promising micro and small enterprises that will contribute to the development of the economies of the francophone countries of West Africa.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
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