We’ve been in business since 2015…
but 2020 made us
We like to think every year should be better than the previous one but 2020 was a hard one, wasn’t it?
We’ve been in business since 2015…
Our journey to 2020
After creating +160 entrepreneurship programs to reactivate the economy by creating jobs, making ecosystems more inclusive and meritocratic, transforming industries through open innovation, engaging employees with their purpose, and supporting students to become job creators… we’ve supported +1,900 entrepreneurs.
We’ve built programs with
The impact of our programs to this day
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SDGs
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Facilitating access to innovation is an objective we must reach together
Previous access to entrepreneurship support
45% of founders in the Bridge for Billion’s community couldn’t find the right support before joining one of our programs to launch their impactful solutions.
Entrepreneurs accessibility to support per location
Still, less than 15% of our founders are based outside of urban areas
Entrepreneurs employment
status
73% of the founders are working and launching a startup at the same time!
Our community’s
impact
53% of our entrepreneurs are focused on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3, 4, 8 and 12
Innovators all over the world
You didn’t hear it from us
This incubator supports seven times more entrepreneurs than the national average
Esther Oulo, Young Entrepreneur from Kenya: “I inspire girls to be their own bosses”
Bridge for Billions arrives in Central America with the mission of building bridges to innovators
This is what they did: 10 female entrepreneurs share the keys (and mistakes) to their success
Eight top European accelerators for female founders to know
The Visa Foundation Commits $4.8 Million To Women Owned Small Business Initiatives
If 2020 taught us anything is that
we are stronger together
Take a look at what we achieved for the ecosystem with some of our amazing partners
The year was off to a rough start globally, so we launched Together for Innovation
An initiative where 20 entrepreneurship programs went digital in response to Covid-19
We used our online platform as a catalyst for purpose-driven innovation by open sourcing it free of charge to allow entrepreneurship programs to present themselves online. Through this initiative, we aimed to ensure ongoing support for entrepreneurs during lockdowns to create a better society post COVID-19. So, twenty of the most innovative, resilient and cutting-edge entrepreneurship programs in the world teamed up with Bridge for Billions to reinvent their programs as a short term response to the pandemic.
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Our expansion to Latin America!
Breaking the incubation-support bottleneck everywhere we go
Despite the high levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity in Latin America, most entrepreneurs still lack access to business training and personalized mentoring. Most local entrepreneurship support programs have a very limited capacity and are unable to meet the huge existing demand from Latin American entrepreneurs. Organizations face high operational costs per entrepreneur and hence they need to be very selective with whom they support. The reality of the Latin American ecosystems is that most programs end up supporting a very privileged group of entrepreneurs who are predominantly male, white, english-speaking and educated in private universities.
The lack of resource-efficiency, inclusivity and meritocracy is systematically rejecting many purpose-driven founders who have the potential to become a lever of growth for the Latin American societies and economies.
LATAM offices
Main focus countries
Support to entrepreneurs and organizations
Our Objectives
The expansion to Latin America was possible due to our partnership with the Argidius Foundation and the consortium of PES LATAM formed by Lefil Consulting, New Ventures, Ashoka, VC4A and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Bridge for Billions was chosen because of our specialization in incubation support for entrepreneurs.
Our scalable model can enable local entrepreneurship support organizations like incubators, accelerators, business centers amongst others to support more closely and more entrepreneurs. Additionally, with our 100% online program The Leap, we are reaching entrepreneurs who normally would not have access to the necessary entrepreneurship support.
Meet the Team making all this possible
The launch of our Global Investors Network
To make the investment ecosystem accessible to all promising purpose-driven ventures
We offer training on investment readiness and fundraising as well as events to help early-stage founders conquer the pre-seed and seed investment process without stepping into the unknown. To help them understand the challenges they’ll face, how to overcome them and what are their exact needs when it comes to fundraising.
We invited experts and investors from our network so that entrepreneurs could learn, get ready and connect. In our first seed-stage investment bootcamp we had interesting conversations with Village Capital, Seedstars and Melanin Kapital to name a few.
Sign-up if you want to share your expertise with a diverse group of early-stage entrepreneurs.
We won the World Bank’s Global Tech Challenge: Solutions for Women award for our work bridging the gender-gap!
To make the investment ecosystem accessible to all promising purpose-driven ventures
We support 30% more female entrepreneurs than the average business incubator as we make gender balance a priority in our day-to-day. Our flexible program structure allows founders to work at their pace and combine their training with their day-to-day responsibilities, an important value for female entrepreneurs.
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We’re proud to work with partners solely focused on bridging the gender-gap
Working with Coca-Cola for the past 3 years on their mission to train and mentor women founders that are developing businesses in the food & beverage or Tourism sectors in rural areas in Spain.
Ashoka Philippines
Building a stronger community for women social entrepreneurs locally allowing them to find the right support to reinvent their businesses during times of crisis.
Kinaya Labs
Training and equipping female founders in Senegal to grow their ventures in order to access corporate and investor partnerships.
Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes
Check out what some of our +45 partners: corporations, foundations, governments and entrepreneurship support organizations did in 2020 as a solution to the most pressing issues our society and economy face today.
Corporates leading the way
Economic Development agencies boosting growth where it’s most needed
Tackling youth unemployment with one of the largest students’ entrepreneurship programs in the Spanish Speaking world.
Buildings4People
Transforming Facility Management Industry through open innovation to solve pressing challenges of a changing world, while affecting its impact in their sector.
Economic Development agencies boosting growth where it’s most needed
Generating local economic opportunities through entrepreneurship training and youth development in 6 African countries.
Building the capacity of local incubators and accelerators in Bangladesh to run high quality business support programs and improve the quality of support offered to impact enterprises locally.
Foundations and Entrepreneurship Support Organizations providing proper support
Universities challenging the status quo
Impact Hub Lagos
A COVID 19 economic recovery initiative to support startups across Nigeria that are creating solutions to rebuild sectors most affected by the COVID19 outbreak and create new jobs.
Fundación Universia
Supporting innovation for both entrepreneurs with disabilities and entrepreneurs with solutions for people living with disabilities.
Universities challenging the status quo
Universidad CEU San Pablo
Re-engaging & creating opportunities for the University Alumni community to start their own businesses through a virtual university incubation program.
Mondragon Team Academy
Supporting young entrepreneurs through undergraduate programs in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation as well as developing FoodTech Startups in the Basque Culinary Center (BCC).
Check out what the community is up-to
Neutral Flight
The first winner of Bridge for Billions’ Fellowship they’ve won 50 000 USD in funding to neutralize air travel carbon footprint while benefiting rural communities across latin america.
Izabela Serowik
While mentoring Community Solutions Aid, Izabela and her mentee Peter developed an inspiring relationship. Today as a member of the Advisory Board, she helped them set a fundraising strategy that has allowed them to secure donations this year.
Blooders
Blooders already saved 6000 lives in Mexico. In 2020 they’ve partnered with giant Uber to offer free rides for those donating blood during the COVID19 pandemic.
Yonah Welker
While mentoring Community Solutions Aid, Izabela and her mentee Peter developed an inspiring relationship. Today as a member of the Advisory Board, she helped them set a fundraising strategy that has allowed them to secure donations this year.
Developers in Vogue
After 3 years training African women in the latest technologies, they have now opened their first in-person training center in Accra.
Hearts Radiant
They promise to increase seniors' healthy lifespan. Within their first year of existence they’ve secured 450k Eur in funding and approved their clinical trial.
Litro de Luz Brasil
Providing electricity and food to vulnerable communities, since 2018 they increased their annual revenue by 40% and moved from 10k to 16k impacted people.
Mayte Varela
Mayte is a world-class business mentor who has mentored over 22 project teams with Bridge for Billions over the past 2 years.
What’s in store for 2021?
We will continue to build bridges in order to welcome female entrepreneurs into the ecosystem, more entrepreneurs from rural areas and leaving outside the capital cities, helping others build efficient entrepreneurship support programs to scale their capacity and together help every entrepreneur out there who’s developing an innovative solution to problems that truly matter.
We plan on continuing our growth in Latinamerica, reconnecting with the US entrepreneurship support ecosystem and meanwhile supporting 5,000 founders globally.
In the meantime
With Bridge for Billions is seeking to support bankable projects from Sub-Saharan Africa focused on forest restoration.
Sub-Saharan Africa
SOFIA
Social Finance Alliance for Romania project financed by the European Commission will develop the capacity of 60 stakeholders in the social finance sector in Romania
Romania
Program financed by EU to promote wellbeing and support social entrepreneurship across 4 cities in Europe
Europe
Transforming industries through innovation
AI, Genomics for Medtech Innovation by Elaj Group
Middle East and North Africa
Construction Tech Innovation with CAC-ASPROCON
Spain
Maritime & Shipyards Innovation with PYMAR
Spain
Coming up in Latinamerica...
Reactivamos Centroamérica
Will bring together leading players in the Central American ecosystem in a joint incubation & capacity building program to diversify the entrepreneurship ecosystem and support 120+ teams across 6 countries.
Central America
Mexico’s Xponential program will be training students to become agents of change and create new solutions for social change.
Mexico
Do you want to create your own entrepreneurship program?
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