Becoming a successful entrepreneur requires grit, passion, a clear goal, and the right partners- Ginika Egwuonwu and her team built the Closed Circuit to bridge capital gaps among people in closed circles and, most importantly, foster the entrepreneurial spirit within communities and cities. She has nurtured this vision with her team, some investors, and Funema into a live technology.
The Closed Circuit is inspired by the African ideology, Ubuntu ‘I am because you are’ and the commandment ‘love your neighbour as yourself, so that entrepreneurial spirits within networks and communities are fostered and nurtured. It is a first of its kind in Africa, measured against the current 480 startup hubs globally (Forbes),
The app allows anyone to start a business or project sponsored by their social trust networks (family, friends, loved ones, communities, neighbours, societies etc.) or as a collective. It aims to close the fund-raising gap and democratise business and project incubation by leveraging collective power.
Why We Are Venture Building the Closed Circuit
- At Funema, we partner with visionary entrepreneurs passionate about solving the developmental challenges of underserved communities in emerging markets. The Closed Circuit has proven to be a good fit, working with just as little to bring the idea to reality.
We see Ginika (founder of the Closed Circuit) as part of this visionary entrepreneurs, as she and the team continue to build a tool that prevents underdevelopment through capital availability while also creating an avenue for people to develop and leverage the latent power of their closed communities.
- Besides having a strong B2B market opportunity (Its first targeted countries, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya combined boast of over 50m small businesses. Over 90% are inefficient and could leverage the Closed Circuit value prop for success), the B2C market is also promising (Nigeria alone, one of the targeted countries has over 200m people with over 50% youth population. We can imagine 1 in every 100 youths using The Closed Circuit to raise funds for projects)
The Closed Circuit digitises the pre-existing relationship between closely knit circles by providing them with a technology they can use to establish accountability to enable long-serving trust.
We stand with them on this.
