# Challenge Fund for Youth Employment

> Challenge Fund for Youth Employment is a VC fund in Utrecht backing Financial Services and B2B. See 6 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Total investments: 6
- Last investment: Mar 2024
- Lead investor: 17%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/challenge-fund-for-youth-employment/about/
- Website: https://fundforyouthemployment.nl/

Challenge Fund for Youth Employment is a 6-year programme funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.2M–$4.9M |
| Grant | $269k–$1.5M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Financial Services | 2 | 33% |
| B2B | 1 | 17% |
| AgTech | 1 | 17% |
| EdTech | 1 | 17% |
| Retail | 1 | 17% |

15 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Grant | 3 | 50% |
| Seed | 2 | 33% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 1 | 17% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Nigeria | 2 | 33% |
| Kenya | 1 | 17% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 17% |
| The Netherlands | 1 | 17% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sprints | Sprints graduates exceptional techies, not just to be employable locally, but to compete globally At Sprints, we promise a "Guaranteed-Hiring" learning journey where learners only pay when hired. With a community of 100K+ techies, Sprints is the ultimate platform for employers to assess, hire, and pay their global tech talents! | $3M | Venture - Series Unknown | Mar 26, 2024 |  |
| Mamamoni | Mamamoni enables the banked, under-banked and unbanked (woman or enterprise)access to banking services and loans. It is also a branchless banking business, meaning that its services are designed so that women can generally conduct transactions without the need to visit bank branches, but simply by using their mobile phones to conduct transactions.It would enable them receive payments for goods and services through their mobile phones.The women are trained on a vocational skill,registered for Mobile Money, taught how to use their mobile phones to accept payments and also to make payments.Her phone number becomes her bank account, she can save money through her phone. she is trained on how to manage and grow her business if she has one and given a loan to fund her business. If she doesn't have a business she's trained on a vocational skill and a loan. | $269.4K | Grant | Feb 19, 2024 |  |
| Balloon Ventures | Balloon Ventures bundles loans of ~$25,000 with tech-enabled business support to de-risk and profitably lend to SMEs in Kenya and Uganda. The approach is unlocking a $150bn segment in sub-Saharan Africa who are currently under-served by all existing financial institutions. Balloon has now made $10m+ loans and is profitable and scaling fast. | $4.9M | Seed | Sep 01, 2022 |  |
| Sprints | Sprints graduates exceptional techies, not just to be employable locally, but to compete globally At Sprints, we promise a "Guaranteed-Hiring" learning journey where learners only pay when hired. With a community of 100K+ techies, Sprints is the ultimate platform for employers to assess, hire, and pay their global tech talents! | $1.2M | Seed | Apr 10, 2022 |  |
| FUNDIS | FUNDIS is a Fintech enabled marketplace that leverages on the popularity of the mobile phone and growing internet access in Africa. Through the web and the FUNDIS mobile App, individuals, households and organizations can find and hire qualified artisans at home, at work and anywhere in between. For the platform artisans a majority operating inAfrica's large informal sector, they reduce the time they take to find decent and regular work. FUNDIS provides them decent regular jobs, tools, loans, insurance, healthcare, upskilling and certification. For the period 2021-2025, FUNDIS is focused on impacting the jobs of 1500 artisans between the ages of 18-35 years and transitioning them into durable self-sustaining gig businesses that can each employ at least one young person in the said age bracket as a way to move the needle on youth unemployment in Africa. | $459.8K | Grant | Jan 31, 2022 |  |
| Releaf Earth | Releaf is a supply chain technology firm that sources ingredients for African food factories. It aims to create climate-adaptive supply chains as Africa's population grows by 3 billion people. Releaf also provides extension services to smallholders, acts as a buyer of their products, and converts the raw material into factory-grade inputs forvegetable oil factories. Releaf uses digital technologies such as USSD and open banking, in addition to hardware, to work seamlessly with its network of over 2,000 smallholder farmers, who have supplied over 15 million kilograms of quality palm kernel nuts to food factories. | $1.5M | Grant | Sep 15, 2021 |  |

6 of 6 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Alex Angels](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alex-af5a) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [AUC Angels](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/auc-angels) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Acasia Group](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cairo-angels) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Citi Foundation](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/citi-foundation) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Cubit Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cubit-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Disruptech Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/disruptech) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

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## FAQ

### What does Challenge Fund for Youth Employment invest in?

Challenge Fund for Youth Employment invests primarily in Financial Services, B2B and AgTech startups, most often at Grant and Seed stage. Most of the 6 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Nigeria. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Challenge Fund for Youth Employment's check size?

Challenge Fund for Youth Employment typically joins rounds of $1.2M–$4.9M at Seed and $269k–$1.5M at Grant. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Challenge Fund for Youth Employment participates in.

### When did Challenge Fund for Youth Employment last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Challenge Fund for Youth Employment closed in Mar 2024. Shizune tracks 6 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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