Applications Open for the tiphub Prototype Innovation Fund

WASHINGTON - Dec. 19, 2014 - PRLog -- tiphub, the mentorship driven accelerator and business consultancy that develops and supports seed stage technology and social impact ventures within Africa and the African Diaspora recently announced the opening of applications for its Prototype Innovation Fund. The fund launched in affiliation with Coders4Africa provides up to $25,000 in consulting and development services for entrepreneurs with businesses focused on Africa or the African Diaspora.

Aimed at supporting entrepreneurs who are passionate about building new products and launching innovative software technologies, the prototypes developed will help the entrepreneurs articulate and test their assumptions while propelling them into the next stage of product development. Particular emphasis will be given to ensure diversity of project impact, team composition, region of operations and coding languages.

Chinedu Enekwe, Executive Director of tiphub says,"The launch of the Prototype Fund brings much needed pre-seed stage support mechanism to the African ecosystem. Our special partnership with Coders4Africa will enable the companies we select to have the support of fully trained local software engineers as well as a host of partners, mentors and a  finance network to help them scale.”

Applying entrepreneurs must be able to contribute at least US$5,000 to their prototypes and can apply for up to $25,000 in development services and tiphub requires no equity  or repayment in exchange. All entrepreneurs with African and/or African Diaspora serving businesses are eligible to apply. Ventures with teams will be given preference however individual applicants will be considered. Additional selection criteria includes clarity of vision, unit economics of proposed impact, diversity of thought, region of operations, and existing development.

Prototype Fund Applications (http://www.tiphub.org/apply/) are due by December 29, 2014. The 5-6 winners of the award will be announced on January 9th. Their finished products are scheduled for released on March 31, 2015.

To submit your application for tiphub’s Prototype Fund please visit http://tiphub.org/apply/.

For media inquiries or interview requests, please contact tiphub Marketing Director Amanda Spann at

amanda[at]tiphub.org.