‘Tamwil Online Platform’: New Funding Platform for Assisting Moroccan Entrepreneurs

Rabat – The Regional Investment Center (CRI Marrakech-Safi) and the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises of the region of Marrakech-Safi (CGEM-Marrakech Safi) launched on Friday, February 19, the first online funding platform for entrepreneurs.

Called the “Tamwil program,” the scheme is designed to support business holders, investors, already-established businesses, and even unsuccessful businesses.

With the support of the Near East Foundation (NEF) and in partnership with the Business Incubator, Emerging Business Foundation, the online platform grants entrepreneurs and business holders an on-hand exploration of their funding options.

In a statement to Morocco World News, the Director of the pole, economic impetus, and territorial offer at Regional Investment Center of Marrakech Safi, Mohamed Amine Sabibi, said that the platform will serve as a venue for assisting investors and project holders through their search for funding.

The platform will familiarize novice entrepreneurs and young project holders with the necessary steps to find and obtain the funding they need to effectively establish their businesses, Sabibi explained.

“Its aim is to build a kind of bridge to connect finance providers with entrepreneurs and project holders. It takes into account the entire set of different incentives and financing mechanisms ranging from capital investments to Capex financing mechanisms,” he said.

According to Sabibi, the project comes at a time when it is convenient and timely, especially as Morocco suffers the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the North African country embarking on a long, potentially painful post-COVID recovery, Sabibi hopes that the “Tamwil program” will complement the Intelaka funding program.

The Moroccan government launched “Intelaka” following King Mohammed VI’s directives to provide funding to youngproject holders. The idea is to invest in youth inclusion and financial empowerment by assisting and funding young entrepreneurs.

“This project originated from the regional Economic Intelligence Committees that we formed post-COVID to think all together and gather people around focus groups to brainstorm on how to effectively relaunch the economy and counter the negative effects of the pandemic,” argued Sabibi.

Sabibi has high hopes for the platform’s prospects. He described the project as a “minimum viable product” that the regional CGEM is dedicated to developing further to make it “more complete and respond to the needs of entrepreneurs.”

For his part, Taoufik Aboudia, the General-Secretary of CGEM-Marrakech Safi, co-founder, and manager of Emerging Business Factory, said that “the online platform aims to help entrepreneurs access data and information related to finding solutions to funding their ventures.”

Aboudia believes the program will not only ease the funding journey for young, first-time entrepreneurs. It will also facilitate both the project holders’ task in bringing to life their ideas and the platform’s goal of gathering feedback from the project holders to improve the Tamwil program’s services.

“We would love to gather their feedback so we can enhance our services and let them run a better experience. We know they hustle with their entrepreneurship path and we would like to be one of the facilitators for them,” Aboudia said.

He announced future plans of nationalizing the funding platform and gradually making it global to pave the way for further investments.

“Hopefully, in the upcoming two months, this platform will run very global and eventually nationalize it and make it accessible to both Moroccan entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs so we can drag massive investments into action,” he said.

NEF is a non-governmental organization (NGO) seeking to improve the lives of the peoples of the Middle-East and Africa (MEA) region to have a meaningful living. It primarily aspires to achieve its aim through education and entrepreneurship.