Our HerVenture app has now supported 100,000 women

Our award-winning HerVenture app has now supported 100,000 women entrepreneurs by delivering essential, women-centred skills training.

In many low and middle income countries, women entrepreneurs are the pillars of their communities and backbones of their economies. In low income countries, approximately 28% of women intend to start a business in the near future. Despite this, women face a host of barriers to business that range from disparities in education, discriminatory attitudes, policies and practices, and gendered social norms that undermine their confidence and self-belief.

We launched HerVenture in 2018 to support women to overcome these barriers and to start and grow successful micro and small enterprises by building their skills, knowledge and confidence. Our app is available in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia and Guyana—where it is so popular that one in 25 women in the country use it.

90% of HerVenture’s users in 2023 improved their business knowledge, and 89% their business management practices. Almost eight out of 10 users in 2023 who already owned businesses were able to improve their business’ performance, with 75% gaining more customers or clients, 67% increasing their profit, 61% increasing their revenue, and 36% increasing their number of employees, highlighting the enormous scale of its impact.

HerVenture’s enormous success can be attributed to its being purpose-built for women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries. Our app is free-of-charge and usable offline, offering women:

• Bite-sized lessons that fit into their busy lives.
• A range of learning topics directly informed by their needs, including launching a business, accessing finance, expanding market access, e-commerce and mobile money.
• A personalised learning journey based on their individual learning needs.
• Enhanced confidence.
• A networking function to build their networks.

Each country’s version of HerVenture is customised for the local context and adapted with our incredible local expert partners. This marks our app out as a powerful, unique and highly effective tool to support women as individuals whilst contributing to gender equality in business at a national scale.

“We know that women have the ambition and potential to run their own businesses, but many are held back from developing the essential skills, knowledge and confidence they need due to systemic, structural and societal barriers,” comments our CEO Dhivya O’Connor. “Our HerVenture app harnesses the power of tech and partnerships to tackle these barriers at a grand scale. We look forward to working with new private and public sector partners to further unlock HerVenture’s huge potential, supporting many thousands more women in more countries.”