HerVenture

Fun and flexible, HerVenture fits learning into women’s busy lives. Our award-winning app offers women entrepreneurs essential business training and support on the go. It features a range of learning tracks on topics including launching a business, accessing finance, expanding market access, e-commerce and mobile money.

HerVenture has been specifically designed to support women in low or middle income countries who are starting or running micro or small businesses in any sector.

Through our app, women gain foundational business knowledge and skills, confidence and self-belief to start and grow businesses, support their entrepreneurial journeys and digitise their enterprises.

The app generates a personalised learning journey for each entrepreneur based on their individual business needs. Learning content is provided in bite-sized, easily digestible formats such as swipe-able cards and quizzes, and can be used offline. Users can find and connect with each other, as well as learn about local business events.

HerVenture is designed to create long outcomes. For women using the app in 2023, when measured at the point of completing the programme:

• 78% had already improved at least one area of their business’s performance:
  • 36% increased their number of employees
  • 61% increased their revenue
  • 67% increased their profit
  • 75% increased their customers or clients
• 63% had already improved their business’s resilience

Purpose-built for women entrepreneurs

Women worldwide have the ambition and potential to run their own businesses. But many are unfairly held back from developing the skills and knowledge they need for success.

We’ve supported over 250,000 women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries. We know from these women’s feedback, from our expert local partners and from our in-depth needs assessments what it is that women need to start and build businesses.

There is a huge appetite for tech-based learning, however internet connectivity is limited in some areas, which is why HerVenture is available offline.

Many women entrepreneurs don’t have excess cash to spend on training. They are also frequently time-poor, unable to fit traditional classroom learning into their busy lives. Our app is free of charge and provides learning in bite-size chunks so women can build skills wherever and whenever it suits them.

We collect feedback from users to continuously improve the app’s content, usability, and features. We also regularly update the app with new content and improvements based on user suggestions and emerging business trends.

Contextualisation and scalability

HerVenture is highly scalable and can be adapted to any geography or language. It is currently available for free on iOS and Android in Vietnam, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa (where it is also available on Huawei), Nigeria and Guyana, with plans to expand further.

The app is directly informed by women’s needs: each country’s version is customised for the local context and adapted in collaboration with local partners.

How we partner

HerVenture is delivered in collaboration with our private sector, government and civil society partners who share our commitment to enabling women’s access to skills, networks and services to grow successful businesses. Our collaborations leverage each partner’s strengths, reach, knowledge and experience to deliver impact and scale

The app can be offered standalone or can complement other business support services – including our own other programmes. We can also work with partners to create new learning tracks on specific topics for users.