Bellafricana has partnered Nest Cooperative to launch a fund for creative MSMEs in Nigeria.
This is in recognition that creative indigenous businesses lack the required skills and support to grow a sustainable business that can compete globally.
Bellafricana platform is targeted at creative businesses with skills and support to grow a sustainable and competitive business.
Bellafricana is an organised community which provides the much needed support and creates an enabling environment for the world to connect and trade online with reliable and credible creative indigenous businesses anywhere.
To further this goal, they have identified a similar interest in MSMEs with the Nest Cooperative and are partnering with them to drive it home via their Investment fund bouquet.
Nest Cooperative, through Finn Labs Ltd, is a registered cooperative focused on developing and enabling mostly SMEs to be better business corporations in Nigeria through the facilitation of smarter and improved financial systems, including savings, investments and loans.
During the signing of the agreement, Bukky Asehinde, CEO of Bellafricana, said, “This initiative is a necessity at this point and especially with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, as a lot of micro, small and medium businesses need this support to enable them scale effectively to be able to participate in this global trade opportunity.”
“We believe that businesses producing quality products made-in-Nigeria play a key role towards increasing our export income as well as taxable income for the economy. Seeing that Nest Cooperative has a proven track record of providing financial expertise with a focus towards SMEs in Nigeria, we couldn’t think of any reasons why not to partner with them.”
Through the Bellafricana platform, various business categories have been vetted, trained and guided through the different business management facets and many of them are currently registered and listed with Bellafricana as verified Nigerian businesses. These categories include food and beverage, fashion, arts & crafts, home and living, health & beauty, to name a few.
Other partners that have already signed up with the community are the Lagos Chamber of commerce and industry, the Nigeria-American Chamber of Commerce, National Export Promotion Council, DHL, and Digital Marketing Skill Institute, among others.
Seyi Olusanya, COO of Nest Bank, said,
“It is quite impressive to see the amount of quality products with attention to details that are being made by members of the Bellafricana community and this becomes a great encouragement to ensure that the support they need to succeed is being provided, and that is why NEST has extended its unwavering commitment to supporting SMEs and ensuring their growth through funding and advisory services.”
The Alliance of the two business entities provides the opportunity for more creative businesses to leverage the partnership for mutual benefits.
One of the NEST Cooperative services the Bellafricana community members will benefit from is a financial model analysis where they advise the SME owners on the smarter ways to position their business to generate more revenue through trade and equipment financing.
The management teams of both companies have specialised skills ranging from understanding the best practices to raising funding for production, material sourcing, branding and packaging— all of which are what SMEs need for the AfCTA and trade globalization.
Asehinde also reiterated the fact that while her focus has been on ensuring that the creative businesses she openly promotes via the Bellafricana platform are verified, a number of the unverified businesses are yet to get to this stage because of imminent gaps in their business operations that prevent them from scaling that milestone achievement.
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