Nevine Gamea — Minister of Trade and Industry and CEO of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (MSMEDA) — said that the agency is cooperating with various donors and international agencies to provide support and assistance to young innovators and entrepreneurs.
This in implementation of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s directives to encourage young people to establish their own innovative projects and support them financially and technically.
Gamea added that the agency managed to implement its first programme to provide investment funds with financing from the World Bank Group amounting to $50m.
Since the start of the programme in 2021, the agency allocated up to 70% of the total value of financing to a number of investment funds that have funded hundreds of start-ups and innovative project owners.
The minister’s remarks came on the side-lines of the MSMEDA signing new contracts with four investment funds within the venture capital programme funded by the World Bank.
These funds include Algebra Ventures II, Endure, Disruptech Egypt Fund, and Flat6 Labs (F6L).
For his part, Aoun Abdel Rahman — Financial Specialist at the World Bank — confirmed that the bank financed venture capital programmes in several countries in Africa and the Middle East, however, the Egyptian experience in implementing the programme in cooperation with the MSMEDA stood out the most.
He added that the World Bank is looking forward to continuing cooperation with the agency and implementing other similar programmes, which will benefit the youth of Egypt and result in developing the Egyptian economy through this promising sector.
MSMEDA Vice Executive Director Tarek Shash explained that the authority aims — through the implementation of the venture capital programme — to provide a successful model for this new type of financing in the Egyptian market, as it works to spread the culture of financing innovative projects among specialised financing institutions in Egypt and encourages them to support entrepreneurs.
He explained that the authority is also taking part in the implementation of training programmes to train professional cadres in various financial institutions to familiarise them with the rules and mechanisms of financing venture capital. This would eventually create a broad base that finances hundreds of innovators and entrepreneurs.
Hany Emad — Head of the Central Sector for Financing Small Enterprises in the MSMEDA — said that the agency’s work plan is to continue increasing the number of local and international institutions working in the field of venture capital to reach the largest possible number of innovative project owners and help them obtain financing mechanisms that suit the needs of their projects. He pointed out that the programme’s capital will contribute to financing approximately 300 new start-ups.
