Tarmiye Fund — $1,000,000 For Somali Entrepreneurs In The Next Five Years
On the 1st of December 2019 Harhub — Hargeisa first entrepreneurship and innovation Hub organized a highly orchestrated occasion celebrating the launch of Tarmiye Fund with the help of Shaqodoon Organization and Premier Bank and the support of Oxfam and Spark, Tarmiye Fund aims to provide funding opportunities for Somali entrepreneurs in the coming five years up to 1 million dollars going onto this businesses development and the creation of at least 1,000 new jobs.
Harhub has also inaugurated the launch of the first Somali crowdfunding platform, Tarmiye Crowdfunding Platform an alternative form of financing for young entrepreneurs; They can use these channels to raise funds for their startups so they can turn their ideas into profitable businesses.
Funding is crucial for elevating business and creating jobs, improving technology, hiring the right people, and launching a comprehensive marketing strategy to get a foothold in the market. However, sourcing enough money to start your new venture can be difficult, especially in this region.
Barriers faced by entrepreneurs include it has became difficult to access suitable funding through the years, high failure rate due to short repayment period, also the development of a collateral requirement by financial institutions such as banks, not only this but entrepreneurs also face limited alternative financing and youth startups are mostly being affected with no active special fund for youth not being in place specially vulnerable people’s access.
““A business without a funding source will flounder under the weight of its own debt. Funding is the fuel on which a business runs. A business can take different avenues to attain funding, and more than one option can be used. The chosen funding will depend on the business’ desire to be in debt, how solvent the business owners are at the time the business is founded and the amount of money a business will need to launch and maintain itself through a variety of events.””
The event was hosted by HarHubs own manager Ahmed Ali who had a conversation with Abdiasis Hersi the guest to talk about the impact of businesses. 8 other business experts from different sectors and industries have also attended the event to be part of the discussion. Abdiasis laid out challenges that COVID19 brings specially to business, he has also explained what measures businesses need to follow and proposed solutions based on experience, insights and research he have conducted prior the event. Other experts have also taken part of the discussion adding their contributions to the topic. The event lasted long for almost 1.5 hours and was broadcasted live over Facebook, due to internet problems the live session was interrupted twice which lead to the creation of a live post few times. The combined views of these three videos was 6,000 views and average of 50 people have been continuously following the whole event. Finally, we have taken few questions from the online audiences whom have added their contributions at the subject in hand.
How Tarmiye is different (Solution):
Tarmiye considering all these challenges and barriers in the market came up with a different approach to the way funds are distributed to businesses, thus limiting the risk to the financial institutions and removing the collateral requirements for loans below 5,000, the increase of duration of the payback, increased grace period to 90 days, and creating alternative funding opportunities for businesses like the crowdfunding platform — Tarmiye.com.
Tarmiye also aims to provide equal opportunities for all target youth, transparency, and funds limited to a defined age bracket with a special consideration to low-income families.
On the launch of the event Abdiqani Dirie the head of programs of Shaqodoon thanked the guests as part of the opening remarks and welcomed to stage Mustafa Othman the Technology and Communication and technology manager, Mustafa thoroughly presented and explained Tarmiye fund.
““On the launch of Tarmiye Fund we have decided to put our forces together to create better opportunities for communities in the different districts in Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia this is for them to have an impact in their respective communities.””
Khadra Ali Harhub manager talked about the hubs 1-year anniversary and how the many success stories she has had the pleasure to see through that 1 year partly inspired the birth of Tarmiye Fund.
““We are pleased to announce the launching of the first crowd funding platform in Somaliland to enable entrepreneurs to raise funding for their ventures and help their businesses sustain and thrive. These ventures go through an accelerator program at the Hub, where they gain valuable input from training by experts and mentorships. Through Harhub we have been testing the platform with cohort 1 comprising five entrepreneurs and all entrepreneurs could complete their campaigns.””
Premier Bank general director Mr Noradin Abdi has also talked about Tarmiye fund their contribution and the role banks play in the funding of these businesses.
The ceremony had also witnessed the official partnership agreement signing where Shaqodoon’s director Mr Mohamed Hassan, Harhub’s Manager Khadra Ali and Premier Bank’s director Noradin Abdi signed the agreement over Tarmiye fund.
Harhub has concluded the event awarding the first and second cohort of the hubs accelerator program where the startups have used Tarmiye crowdfunding opportunity to raise 30% to 50% of the seed fund they have received from Harhub, Mohmoud Batalaale Investment Manager of Harhub facilitated this session.
Finally, the minister of Somaliland’s Investment Mr Mohamed Awad who was also present said few remarks praising the partners for starting this initiative to fund the youth lead businesses.
““This program can inspire youth to join entrepreneurship and lead to the fruition of this nations natural resources for business, as well as fighting poverty and the creation of jobs which can help with the illegal immigration.””