Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) Venture Accelerator

By building the pipeline of companies attractive to investors focused on climate and energy access, CCA aims to drive more capital into the sector.

CCA implements Venture Accelerator activities via a series of themed cohorts, each made up of small- to medium-sized clean cooking enterprises. CCA uses a competitive selection process to identify cohort members. Enterprises selected for the Venture Accelerator will receive:

• Virtual and in-person learning opportunities, both modular and customized
• Tailored technical assistance to aid business acceleration
• Access to expert coaches and/or mentors to help with implementation and capacity building
• Post-program support through connection to the broader clean cooking community, including to investors and partners.

The primary goal of Cohort 1 is to build the capacity of clean cooking companies to attract carbon finance in support of national climate and carbon finance goals. This includes widening opportunities for small- and medium-sized clean cooking companies to attract carbon financing commitments or participate in existing carbon finance programs, while reducing investment risks for pre-financiers and carbon buyers.

Cohort 1 will recruit high-potential clean cooking enterprises with the ambition to attract carbon finance as a source of growth capital. The program will help enterprises address gaps in their knowledge, management capacity, and technical capacity that currently impede them from participating in the carbon markets and accessing carbon finance. Simultaneously, the program will increase the visibility of these enterprises to carbon project developers, intermediaries, and carbon buyers.

The Accelerator will address these challenges by providing technical assistance and capacity building support to:

• Diagnose enterprise-level gaps that impede the development of bankable carbon projects.
• Guide enterprises in understanding the evolving policy environment around carbon markets in general.
• Develop strategies to access global carbon market off-takers and national-level programs, where applicable.
• Access technical expertise to assist with the process of structuring carbon programs.
• Create linkages to ecosystems players that pre-finance carbon projects.

Eligibility Criteria

• CCA invites applications from enterprises that are manufacturing or distributing clean cooking products, as well as enterprises in adjacent energy access sectors that are planning to include clean cooking solutions in their product portfolio. Applicants should be in the early stages of defining their carbon strategy and seeking support to rapidly accelerate their progress in this regard.
• Eligibility criteria includes:
  • Enterprise domiciled in West Africa
  • Full-time management team
  • At least three years of operating history and a proven business model
  • Operating traction, ideally with sales revenues greater than US$ 100K in the last financial year
  • Ability to commit at least four days per month to the program over a 4-to-5-month period
  • Commitment to participate in a 5-day, in-person bootcamp in Accra in November 2023
  • Female-led/founded/co-founded and locally founded enterprises are encouraged to apply.

For more information, visit CCA.