BDC awards Business Den-recipient P500,000 grant
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday February 26, 2021 15:18
BDC will incubate Alosa, which manufactures animal feeds, for 18 months where the company will receive monitoring, evaluation and mentoring as part of the deal. Alosa will also be assisted with structuring and modifying its business. According to the government investment arm, when they opened calls in February last year, about 244 entrepreneurs showed interest. They had to scrutinise the submissions looking at the compliance criterion which saw only 73 applications making it through. The shortlisted entries were then handed over to the RSM Consultants who were tasked with evaluating and selecting the winners. The process saw the top 10 applications battling it out last week for the top position, where they pitched their ideas to a panel of judges.
When handing over the cheque on Tuesday, BDC managing director, Cross Kgosidiile said the competition was open to 100% youth-owned Botswana companies between the ages of 18 and 35. Both start-ups and existing businesses qualified for the opportunity across all sectors. “We reached out to entrepreneurs to allow them to secure funding and mentoring. The call was open to all sectors to align with our mandate of investing in commercially viable businesses,” he said.
Chief judge, Mythri Sambasivian-George said some of the things they considered when judging included commercial viability, export potential, widespread impact on the community, if the project is scalable and if it is innovative. “We scrutinised to find if the project can grow, create employment if it has the GDP potential to mention a few. Alosa stood out because they had a diverse team who all owned the podium, had proof of the concept and ticked all the boxes we were looking for,“ she said.
BDC had earlier revealed its plans to spend up to P750 million on various new projects bolstered by resurgent finances and a P800 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB). Last year, BDC and AfDB signed a P900 million thematic Line of Credit for a 10-year tenor. The capital injection will support the corporation’s long-term strategy to scale up its investments in key sectors including manufacturing, transport, agriculture agro-processing and service sectors to support transformation and industrialisation of the economy. The transaction further supports BDC’s focus on safeguarding its balance sheet to ensure financial sustainability whilst fulfilling its mandate as the government’s main investment arm.