The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (Danish MoFA) and Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) have partnered to implement the GreenBiz Programme for the next five years, from January 2021 to December 2025. The support to KCIC (and KCV) under this engagement totals DKK 54,750,00, approximately Kes. 1 billion with a focus on climate technologies and related innovative business models. The programme will support 300 businesses to create over 3,000 full time job opportunities.
The expected outcome will be increased commercialization and scale up of climate-related companies, which create decent jobs, increased access to low carbon energy sources, increased community and household resilience to climate change as well as other environmental and social benefits.
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The applications can be submitted online through the KCIC website. hereafter, an evaluation of the applications will be done and responses to the applicants will be communicated by KCIC by 16th July 2021. KCIC will offer successful applicants a letter of agreement for review and thereafter signing. This call for applications aims to onboard 60 climate technologies that cover renewable energies and energy efficiency, Water, Agribusiness, Commercial forestry and Waste management.
Post-on-boarding to the programme, a needs assessment exercise will be conducted to ascertain the specific needs of the successful applicants. Based on these needs, successful applicants will receive technical and financial support based on assessments done to support their growth.
Benefits
The following describes the kind of financial support that can be provided by KCIC to successful applicants under the GreenBiz Programme. Support is based on assessment of actual needs on a case-by-case basis.
Two types of financial support:
- Successful applicants can receive financial support through either Proof-of-Concept grant financing (POC) or Early-Stage Financing (ESF) to support the innovative businesses.
- In order for the Successful Applicants to be considered for financing under the GreenBiz Programme, their business models will be evaluated against the criteria for financing, defined in the KCIC POC and ESF Financing criteria.
- Funds application, evaluation and processing will come after 3 months of technical support and advisory services for POC cases and 3-6 months of technical support and advisory services for ESF cases that will assist businesses develop Bankable proposals.
POC
- The purpose of Proof-of-Concept grant financing is to prove a concept of an idea, test prototype in the market, product development support before market testing, refine the business model and progress towards commercialization.
- It is a non-repayable matching grant subject to agreed drawdown milestones.
- The size of POC support must fall within the following ranges:
- Minimum amount: Kes 1,000,000
- Maximum amount: Kes. 5,000,000
ESF
- The purpose of the Early-Stage Financing (ESF) is to support businesses at the growth stage and can scale their business.
- It’s a repayable debt
- Interest rates ranging from 8% – 10% per annum
- The size of ESF support must fall within the following ranges:
- Minimum amount: Kes. 5,000,000
- Maximum amount: Kes.10,000,000
External Financing
- KCIC will also provide transaction advisory services to entrepreneurs to be able to access third party financing such as debts, grants and equity investments
Eligibilities
Business Compliance
The applicant should be registered under the laws of Kenya.
- Limited Liability company
- Sole Proprietorship but willing to register the business as a limited company within the first 3 months once a business is selected
Location: The business must be located and legally registered in Kenya.
Scope: The company should be within the below mentioned thematic areas:
- Agribusiness.
- Water management.
- Renewable energy and energy efficiency.
- Waste Management
- Commercial forestry
Agribusiness:
Businesses focusing in any of the following areas will be considered but are not limited to;
- Resilient crops/seeds.
- Climate smart/energy efficient agricultural machinery
- Efficient irrigation mechanisms/Technologies.
- Efficient/value addition and food processing
- Climate friendly inputs/alternatives for example pesticides, fertilizers, and other field operations.
- Post-harvest management technologies
Water Management:
KCIC is focusing on businesses that are developing sustainable and innovative water management interventions associated with, but are not limited to:
- Solar filtration
- Desalination
- Innovative technologies in rainwater harvesting and storage
- Efficient irrigation technologies
- Biotechnology for water treatment.
- Smart Water Metering
- Supply and distribution of clean water
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency:
KCIC is looking to support innovative businesses that innovatively offers climate change mitigation or adaptation solutions through any or all of the following, but are not limited to:
- Off-grid technologies – solar PV, biogas, biomass and wind
- Micro-hydro – domestic and rural mini-grid use
- Bio-energy – bio-gasification, bio-diesel, biomass power and heating
- Energy Efficient Technologies; Cook stoves, Solar Lanterns,
- Energy metering and Energy Storage technologies.
Waste Management:
KCIC is interested to incubate innovative businesses falling within any of the following areas, but are not limited to:
- Efficient waste aggregation and processing
- Reduction of waste toxicity
- Upcycling waste materials
- Recycling waste materials
- Conversion of waste to energy
- Economic ways of composting waste
- Reduction of waste generation
Commercial Forestry:
KCIC is looking to incubate innovative businesses across all commercial forestry value chains that encourage growth of commercial forests, innovative processing technologies and manufacturing of value-added as, this will focus on but not limited to;
- Planting Trees for commercial purposes on at least 3 acres of land
- Demonstrating sustainable practices in forest management and tree harvesting to build resilient forests
- Use of technologies to grow and monitor forest coverage that reduce deforestation and degradation
- Innovative best practices in agroforestry that enhance agricultural landscape resiliency, facilitate species movement to more favorable conditions, sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Commercial tree nurseries and seeds production facilities
- Efficient production, processing and use of wood raw material
Application Process
- The applications will be screened for eligibility.
- The eligible applications will then be evaluated on a set of criteria. A scoring system will be used to provide incubation applications with a score between 1 and 25 (25 being most successful) and acceleration applications with a score between 1 and 30 (30 being most successful)
- All applicants will receive an official response on their application determining whether they were successful or not. KCIC is not obligated to provide substantive feedback on unsuccessful applications.
- Successful clients will receive an email indicating terms of the programme and proposed due diligence dates, while unsuccessful clients will receive an email indicating proper justification of why their application was rejected.
- The applicant can contest the evaluation by submitting a formal request to KCIC within 14 days upon receiving the rejection email.
- Applicants will be contacted via email regarding their application.
- Due Diligence shall be carried out on the successful applicants to verify eligibility prior to any potential offer of a placement in the program.
- Applications that do not meet all or some of the eligibility criteria will not be accepted.
- If Applicants are offered a place in the program, they will be expected to execute a legal agreement with Kenya Climate Innovation Center, by signing a Letter of Agreement, which will be sent to them via email
- Applicants must accept the offer and return the signed Agreement within seven (7) working days, otherwise the offer lapses
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Application Deadline: July 6, 2021
Application ClosedOfficial link
