Situation
OCA entered into a two-year partnership with the USAID-funded, East Africa Trade and Investment Hub (EATIH) to provide investment readiness and transaction advisory support to East African SMEs looking to export to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The purpose of this program was to help increase intra-regional and international trade under AGOA, create jobs and enable investment across the East African region
Our Process
OCA supported the client by:
- Screening over 100 businesses across the broader East Africa region and Madagascar to determine those that had the highest growth potential
- Providing tailored support for each business including improving and professionalizing operations, preparing for rapid scale
- Supporting individual businesses through all stages of their capital raising,
- Working with individual businesses to establish new trade links or scale existing export relationships
The overall goal for the 2-year engagement was to find and support 15 high-potential, export-focused SMEs. OCA achieved over USD 11M in capital raised for these "missing middle" SMEs, exceeding our target by>35%.
