Seedstars, SANAD Launch Program To Support Female-Led Startups Across The MENA And Sub-Saharan Africa
The program will support 40 female-led startups through structured acceleration, business support, and investment-readiness activities.
The Swiss-based global entrepreneurship platform Seedstars has partnered with the MENA and Africa-focused development firm SANAD Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) to launch the SANAD Elevate Her Program, a multi-phase initiative aimed at supporting female-led and 2X-aligned startups across the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The program aims to respond to the region’s US$42 billion funding gap for female entrepreneurs, who continue to face limited financial access, climate-related challenges, and household burdens that constrain economic participation. This explains its use of the 2X criteria, which are global gender-lens investment standards that recognize companies meaningfully advancing women’s participation through ownership, leadership, employment, or women-focused products and services.
With operations in more than 90 countries, Seedstars focuses on emerging markets, providing training, mentorship, and investment support to startups. SANAD TAF complements this mission by promoting entrepreneurship and economic empowerment across the Middle East and Africa, with a focus on women and youth.
The SANAD Elevate Her Program will support 40 female-led startups through structured acceleration, business support, and investment-readiness activities. Startups will be selected from Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Yemen, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda. Priority sectors include sustainability, agrifinance, and fintech—areas that play a central role in improving resilience and women’s economic participation.
The program helps founders strengthen financial readiness, improve access to capital, and refine business models using Seedstars’ SMART methodology and the SIGMA platform, which offers tools to track growth and measure impact. Participants will receive tailored mentorship, sector-specific guidance, and access to a network of more than 500 investors, financial institutions, and ecosystem partners across the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa. The program also includes support for integrating gender-focused key performance indicators (KPIs) and offers visibility through case studies, media features, and regional pitch opportunities.
Furthermore, Seedstars will also facilitate connections with development agencies, corporates, and investors to help participating startups build long-term partnerships and expand their opportunities beyond the program.
Eligible startups must be women-led or have a strong gender lens, be at the early to growth stage with at least a prototype or minimum viable product (MVP), and operate on a for-profit, tech-enabled model generating up to $1 million in annual revenue. Solutions may span finance, agriculture and food systems, climate and sustainability, and other sectors tied to livelihoods and inclusion. Companies must either be majority women-owned or meet 2X criteria in ownership, leadership, employment, customer focus, or support for women entrepreneurs.
Applications are open from October 28 to December 6, 2025. Selected companies will be announced on December 17, 2025. The acceleration program, which will be delivered both online and offline, will take place between February and September 2026, with a regional offline competition scheduled for September 2026. Graduated startups will then receive tailored training support between October 2026 and October 2027.
Interested participants can apply here.
