HerVenture in Kenya
Our free business skills app HerVenture has supported over 19,000 women entrepreneurs in Kenya to grow their businesses.
In Kenya, there is a massive gender gap in formal business ownership. While women’s entrepreneurship is common in the country, only 31.4% of formal businesses are owned by women. Kenyan women entrepreneurs often lack access to the business development services that could support them to thrive, which creates an even wider gender gap.
With support from our funding partners DHL Express, Smart Regional Consultants, and former partners Sinapis, HerVenture has been available in Kenya since mid-2020.
HerVenture is one of the Foundation’s six flagship programmes. Our business skills mobile learning app provides women entrepreneurs with essential business knowledge and skills to successfully start up and grow their businesses.
Our app delivers bite-sized lessons that women can take while on the go. This is important as many women entrepreneurs in Kenya and have to juggle business with unpaid care and domestic work. The app can also be used offline, a key feature as only 38% of Kenya has internet coverage.
HerVenture features a range of learning tracks which were developed with local partners to address the specific needs of women entrepreneurs in Kenya. Topics include launching a business, accessing finance, expanding market access and e-commerce. Presently in Kenya, there are no other mobile apps that are specifically designed for women entrepreneurs at the start-up stages of their business lifecycle.
So far, 19,232 Kenyan women entrepreneurs have used HerVenture, leading to some incredible impacts.
In 2024...
97% of users improved their business practices.
92% of users improved their business performance.
84% of users improved their business resilience through increasing their savings.
In 2022, HerVenture’s impact in Kenya was recognised at Kenya’s Mobile App Summit and Awards, winning the award for Best Use of Mobile For Social and Economic Development in the Social Impact category.
HerVenture: a business skills learning app
HerVenture is one of the Foundation's six flagship programmes, which also include Road to Growth, Road to Leadership, Road to Finance, Road to Markets and the Mentoring Women in Business programme. It provides women entrepreneurs of micro and small enterprises with the knowledge and skills to successfully grow their businesses.
Our partners
HerVenture in Kenya is supported by our partner DHL Express, and delivered with our partner Smart Regional Consultants (SRC).
Read stories from HerVenture users in Kenya...
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Wangari’s story
In 2020, as the global pandemic hit, we brought our flagship business skills training app HerVenture to women entrepreneurs in Kenya, thanks to support from our partner DHL Express. Wangari is one of the 1,100 Kenyan women who took the opportunity to make use of the app and strengthen her business against COVID-19’s impacts.
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Juliet’s story
Juliet runs a vegetable stall in Nairobi. Our HerVenture mobile learning app supported her to develop her business skills, overcome the pandemic's challenges and start on the pathway to growth!
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Asilia’s story
Asilia used our HerVenture app in Kenya in 2020.
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