Six Degrees Fund I — Cohort 1 story
How $3.1M was raised against a $7.2M ask
Not a fundraising story. An evidence story. Below is how scattered business information became bankable evidence — and the live platform numbers behind it.
$3,100,000
Raised to date
of $7,200,000 total cohort ask
43% of the cohort ask · progress against the ask, not a fund size or a committed target.
Where the work stands today
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Applications
Live from the platform
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Businesses that improved
Readiness score increased
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Advisory mandates
— active right now
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Reviews shared with founders
Assessment reports issued
The five moves that made it bankable
- 01
Open the funnel
We opened Cohort 1 to African SMEs through an online expression of interest. Every submission entered the same structured intake — no introductions, no shortcuts.
- 02
Score readiness honestly
Each business was scored against the same readiness framework: governance, financial management, market access, operations and digital maturity. The first score is a baseline, not a verdict.
- 03
Issue a mandate and do the work
Where the gaps were fixable, we converted the review into an advisory mandate: financial reconstruction, bookkeeping clean-up, governance documents and a defensible growth plan.
- 04
Build the data room
Reconstructed financials, statutory records and contracts were filed into a structured data room so an investor could assess the business without a three-month document chase.
- 05
Re-score and take it to capital
Businesses were re-scored on the evidence, and the ones that cleared the bar were packaged and taken to investors. That is how the $3.1M was raised — evidence first, capital second.
Want the same path?
It starts with a readiness review. Costings and scores are indicative and can be wrong — we reassess as soon as missing information is supplied.