The consortium
No single organisation has everything it takes to scale a business and close its capital. Four organisations hold the programme between them, and each one is here for something the others do not have. Discussions are under way with a fifth — a programme manager, to deliver the consortium’s expertise on the ground in a coordinated and effective way.
How it is put together
A programme that takes a company from diagnosis through to capital close needs four different competences, and organisations that genuinely hold all four do not exist. The usual answer is a chain of referrals — an accelerator hands to a consultant, who hands to a fund — and companies fall out of the gaps between them.
SSI’s answer was to assemble the competences first and design the programme around them. We originated the concept, hold the strategic lead, and brought ScaleUpNation, GrowthAfrica and Strathmore University Business School together over two years of joint development. The consortium is in place before the funding is — which is unusual, and deliberate: we constructed something new, and needed.
That is a claim about content, and we mean it precisely. The methodology, the diagnostic, the local delivery capability and the academic anchor are assembled and agreed. What the programme does not yet have is the operational partner to run it at scale — which is a different kind of organisation, and a gap left deliberately to the end, to be filled once the strategic direction and the content are in place.
What SSI holds directly is the sustainability focus and the investor network. What it does not hold, it does not pretend to.
Who owns what
SSI is recognised as the originating organisation and custodian of the programme’s architecture, strategic framework and long-term vision.
SSI makes no claim on the methodologies, tools or intellectual property its partners bring. Those remain the property of the organisations that built them.
The four organisations
Strategic lead & originator
A privately registered Kenyan company, based in Nairobi and founded by two former UN directors. SSI conceived the Scaling and Investment Derisking Programme, developed its architecture over two years, and convened the consortium around it.
Within the programme SSI holds the strategic lead, the sustainability focus and the investor network, and carries the relationship with funders and strategic partners.
Enterprise development
Enterprise development and on-the-ground delivery in Kenya — the day-to-day work with the companies in the cohort, from the first diagnostic through to implementation support. That work is company by company; running the programme around it is the separate role described below.
Scaling methodology
The methodology the programme runs on. ScaleUpNation studied close to 700 venture assessments over seven years and distilled the findings into 15 Scale-Up Success Factors and the ScaleUpScan — the diagnostic every company in the programme is measured against.
This is what makes progress comparable rather than anecdotal: the same instrument, the same factors, every business, at entry and again on the way through.
That evidence base was built primarily on European technology ventures. The programme applies it in Kenya through the ScaleUpScan — it does not claim African provenance for the underlying research.
Visit ScaleUpNation
Academic partner and scientific rigour
Academic capacity and executive education in Nairobi, anchoring the programme in a Kenyan institution with an established record in business education.
Our invitation
The knowledge consortium is complete — the scaling methodology, the enterprise development and the academic anchor are all in place. What the programme still needs is an operational partner: an organisation with the delivery machinery, the donor management and the country presence to run something of this size alongside us, and to co-fundraise for it. Our partners work company by company; this role is programme-wide.
What SSI brings
What a delivery partner brings
If your organisation runs business development programmes in East Africa and sees a route into expanding into scaling green enterprise growth, there is a conversation worth having.
Get in touch
We’re talking with funders and strategic partners who want to help growth-stage green businesses reach scale. If that’s you, we’d like to hear from you.