In a decisive push to close one of the world’s most persistent financing gaps, Swiss emerging-market investor Seedstars has joined forces with the SANAD Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) to launch the SANAD Elevate Her Programme a multi-phase initiative aimed at accelerating female-led and 2X-aligned startups across the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Seedstars, known for its deep footprint across over 90 emerging markets, has long positioned itself as one of the few global venture networks that consistently channels capital, training, and ecosystem support into regions often overlooked by mainstream investors. Its model blends mentorship, venture building and catalytic capital to prepare early-stage companies for scale. SANAD TAF brings a complementary mandate, strengthening economic resilience in the Middle East and Africa, with a focus on entrepreneurship, employment and the economic inclusion of women and youth.
Together, the organisations are responding to a stark reality. Across Africa and the Middle East, women founders face an estimated US$42 billion funding gap a shortfall widened by climate shocks, unequal access to finance and the dual burden of childcare and household responsibilities. These factors limit women’s capacity to build scalable companies despite demonstrably higher returns per invested dollar among women-led ventures, according to global investment benchmarks.
The Elevate Her Programme aims to shift that trajectory.
Over the coming months, Seedstars and SANAD TAF will select 40 high-potential female-led startups, offering them tailored acceleration, investment-readiness support and access to a trusted global network of mentors and investors. Startups eligible for the programme span Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Yemen, reflecting both frontier and fast-growing innovation markets.
The programme targets sectors that are shaping the next decade of growth across Africa and the Middle East: sustainability, agrifinance and fintech. These industries are central to job creation, food security, climate resilience and financial inclusion areas where female innovators are already introducing practical, community-driven solutions but remain critically underfunded.
For Africa in particular, the initiative arrives at a pivotal moment. The continent is experiencing a surge in entrepreneurial activity, despite a global downturn in venture capital. African founders continue to build for essential markets, such as energy, agriculture, payments, logistics and women are increasingly at the forefront of this shift. Yet their share of the capital pool remains disproportionately low, even as institutional investors signal growing interest in gender-lens investing.
By combining Seedstars’ emerging-market expertise with SANAD TAF’s regional development mandate, Elevate Her seeks not only to accelerate individual ventures but to reinforce the broader entrepreneurial ecosystems in which they operate. The goal is to ensure women founders can build companies that survive shocks, create jobs, and compete on a global stage.
Applications for the programme are now open here: sanad.seedstars.com.
