With a deep-rooted desire to ensure that the average Nigerian entrepreneur is pulled out of the abyss of frustration and poverty caused by governmental and societal neglect, AACLE International, a United Kingdom-based company founded by Nigerian professionals, is set to launch an online community of entrepreneurs providing financial and other solutions to the business needs of each member of the community. The focus of AACLE, which website launches Thursday, December 1st, is especially on young school leavers, young adults with viable business ideas and SMEs who they give business grants ranging from N20, 000 to N1million.
A statement signed by AACLE’s Director of Social Enterprise, Tosin Adebusuyi, avers, “The aim of AACLE is to help bridge the gaps as a social enterprise that provides a veritable and robust space for interaction among entrepreneurs on one hand; and interaction with solution providers on the other hand. These solution providers are both private and institutional and they bring to the table the seed capital, startup fund, growth capital and expansion fund to existing and start-up SMEs.” She continued, “By the time it is launched, aacle.com will become the biggest village, a global melting pot, for entrepreneurs across Nigeria and beyond where everybody’s interest is the overall welfare of the promoter and his/her business. This is the on-line network that brings sustainable solutions to diverse challenges of the Nigerian entrepreneur.”
Adebusuyi noted that some of the solutions AACLE provides include funding SMEs, finding practical and lasting solutions to take-off challenges, offering legal advice and assistance as they affect businesses, mentoring the needs of business owners and even going as far as ensuring the well-being of entrepreneurs on the platform among others. Further, she said, “AACLE also hopes to empower the next generation of prospective small and micro entrepreneurs with business intelligence and start-up grants, provide existing and struggling small ventures with growth financing with no collateral security, support pensioners and the unemployed with small grants for business venture and provide free on-line counsel to the unemployed in the area of CV writing, job hunting and interview preparation.”
As part of its entry efforts in job and wealth creation, the Central Bank of Nigeria, through its Entrepreneurship Development Centre, has partnered with AACLE which gives the company more in-road into other parts of the country starting with the southwest. According to Dr Olumide Ajayi, Program Director, CBN-EDC Southwest, “Every person that enrolls for the program enjoys world class facilitation and business development services which also includes writing of their business plans and post training field visits, access to funding from the CBN MSME intervention fund and other funding opportunities, linkage with established organisations for internship, as well as 12months of post training mentoring from the centre.” The benefits are indeed innumerable. Though registration fee for the CBN-EDC is N5, 000, AACLE has offered to pay for 600 Nigerians who register on the platform and who possess a minimum of OND qualification and a BVN among other requirements.