Consultancy – Venture Studio business modelling advisory services for Egyptian VS

We are looking for advisory services on Business Modelling, for an Egyptian Venture Studio

CFYE Overview

The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) is a 7-year and €135 million programme funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that aims to create a prosperous future for 230,000 young women and men in the Middle East, North Africa, Sahel & West Africa and Horn of Africa regions. The Fund supports implementing partners in 11 countries that will offer youth, in particular young women, opportunities for work that is demand-driven and productive, offering a stable income and safe working conditions, and that is contributing to their personal development and social protection.
Private sector, civil society and knowledge institutions work on projects geared to scalable solutions for creating more and better jobs and income generating opportunities for youth. Solutions in particular focus on an integrated approach that addresses the shortcomings on the demand side (jobs) and supply side (skills) and bridging the mismatch between these two in the labour market.
Assignment Overview
Jobtech and Edtech have proven to be two sectors that drive a lot of employment for youth and several IPs on the CFYE portfolio are active in these sectors. To ensure that a steady flow of new edtech companies is seeing the light, CFYE’s IP in Egypt, Edventures, has set up an investment fund and a venture studio to catalyze a next generation of edtech companies in Egyptian and beyond. Through the CFYE-supported EdVentures Venture Studio (EDVS), it supports promising scaleups to accelerate their impact and job creation potential, especially for youth and women. The studio model is designed to provide business support, mentorship, and growth strategies tailored to the scaleups’ needs, which should ultimately lead to more jobs for young people.

As the EdVentures Venture Studio enters a pivotal stage, it faces two strategic challenges: ensuring long-term sustainability of the studio model and deepening engagement among its supported scaleups. Both are essential for maintaining and expanding the employment impact generated during the CFYE program. To support Edventures on both challenges, we are looking for a venture studio building expert who can bring EDVS to its next stage of growth. This SoW lays down the foundations for this assignment.

Objectives and Activities

The objective of this assignment is to strengthen the long-term viability of the EDVS model by refining its strategic direction and identifying risk mitigation pathways. This should ultimately lead to a business model for EDVS that is less dependent on (individual) sources of external grant funding. So far, Edventures has already worked on initial modelling for the venture studio’s sustainability. It has also explored potential revenue models and partnership opportunities, and has established a basic operational structure for future operations.

To build a successful model on these first foundations, the consultant is expected to:

• Conduct a structured risk analysis of the studio’s current and projected operations, identifying potential sustainability threats related to funding, partnerships, and market positioning.
• Develop a benchmark on EDVS model against comparable regional and international venture studios, creating insights into best practices in amongst others governance, value proposition, and scaleup engagement models.
• Review and refine EdVentures existing business model by offering strategic input on focus areas, priorities, and feasibility dimensions.
• Deliver a high-level longer term sustainability roadmap incorporating findings and practical next steps for institutional growth beyond the current CFYE-sponsored program period (which ends summer 2026).

Furthermore, building on the above, EDVS also wishes to further strengthen its existing engagement with the EDVS portfolio through community building. Ideally the selected consultant also advises Edventures on a practical and scalable community engagement approach to ensure that portfolio companies remain engaged with Edventures after they have graduated from the Venture Studio.

Operational Arrangements
The consultant will work closely together with the management of Edventures and report on progress of the assignment to the Egypt country team and the Scaling and Growth advisor of CFYE. The day to day contact person from the side of Edventures is Ahmed Nagib, product manager of EDVS. The consultant is expected to engage with the EDVS team on a regular basis, and frequently meet in-person with the Edventures team, based in Cairo.
The consultant will be contracted for this assignment through CFYE’s lead partner Palladium and should have the necessary documentation to work as an independent consultant and/or advisory firm. Approvals on reporting (see also below) will be done together by Edventures and CFYE, which will also serve as trigger for payments.

Core Competencies & minimum requirements

The consultant should possess the following qualifications and expertise:

• Extensive business development/strategy experience, preferably an MBA
• At least 10 years experience working in Edtech and/or in business advisory services for growth-oriented companies in Egypt and/or MENA region
• Detailed understanding of venture studio models, and the development of business- and revenue models for venture studio’s or similar models such as accelerators.
• Sound understanding of the investment landscape for Edtech in the MENA region.
• Hands-on mentality, able to provide concrete and practical advise at senior management level
• Ability to apply conceptual frameworks around business models, revenue models, (financial) forecasting etc.
• Familiarity with startup ecosystems, particularly in community building and stakeholder engagement.
• Excellent writing and analytical skills

Level of Effort and Reporting

The consultant can ideally start as soon as possible but no later than 14th of July and engage for approximately 3 months on this assignment. This engagement is on a part-time basis, requiring approximately 8-12 hours/week with a maximum Level of Effort of 20 days. During implementation, consultant shall provide a monthly log of hours worked, detailing the activities performed. This should also lay the foundation for monthly invoicing for the assignment. Besides the abovementioned deliverables, the consultant will also provide a monthly progress report to Edventures and CFYE.

How to Apply

Interested and qualified candidates can submit their application, consisting of CV(s) and short proposal to niek.vandijk@cfye.nl