Things To Know As Tony Elumelu Foundation Opens Applications For 2025 Entrepreneurship Programmes

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Africa’s leading champion of entrepreneurship, has announced that applications for its 2025 Entrepreneurship Programmes are now open.

Aspiring and existing entrepreneurs from across Africa are invited to apply for a chance to receive world-class training, expert mentoring, and non-refundable seed capital funding to scale their businesses.

Applicants must be at least 18 years old, according to the leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and increasing women’s economic empowerment.

Information available revealed that programmes open for application are broken into three categories, namely:

The first is the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Programme, the flagship TEF Entrepreneurship Programme that is open to all entrepreneurs across Africa with innovative business ideas or existing businesses not older than five years. This category places special emphasis on businesses leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and green initiatives this year.

The second is the IYBA-WE4A Entrepreneurship Programme, which was launched by the Tony Elumelu Foundation in partnership with the European Union (EU) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

IYBA-WE4A stands for Investing in Young Businesses in Africa – Women Entrepreneurship for Africa and is exclusively for women entrepreneurs with green business ideas or existing green businesses in Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, and Togo.

The criteria stress that applicants must be at least 18 years old, with businesses not exceeding five years in operation.

The third is the Aguka Ideation Programme, properly known as The Aguka Ideation Entrepreneurship Programme. It is a partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation, UNDP Rwanda, and the Rwandan Ministry of Youths and Arts to support young Rwandan entrepreneurs aged 18–30 with business ideas. The programme provides seed capital of $3,000, with the aim of nurturing and developing innovative concepts into viable enterprises.

Additional information stipulates that applications are to be submitted through TEF’s proprietary digital hub, TEFConnect, between January 1, 2025 – March 1, 2025.

“Applicants are encouraged to complete and submit their applications well ahead of the deadline,” according to the statement announcing the portal opening.

The statement added that the opportunity is open to African entrepreneurs with scalable business ideas or existing businesses not older than five years, insisting that “applicants must be at least 18 years old.”

Founded in 2010, the Tony Elumelu Foundation is committed to empowering African entrepreneurs as a catalyst for the continent’s economic transformation.

Since the launch of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has provided up to 2.5 million young Africans with access to training on its digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed over USD $100 million in direct funding to over 21,000 African women and men. Collectively, they have created over 800,000 direct and indirect jobs and generated over USD $4.2 billion in revenue.

The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.