2025 was a strong and encouraging year for Orange Corners. Even amid unrest and conflict in several of the countries where we operate, our commitment only deepened. As a result, we made meaningful progress and took significant steps forward across our programmes and partnerships.
In 2025, we reached 19,225 aspiring young entrepreneurs through entrepreneurial activities such as workshops and masterclasses and 821 entrepreneurs graduated from our training programmes around the globe. These entrepreneurs marked our programme with an average of 9 out of 10 (up from 8.7 in 2024 and 8.3 in 2023). We also extended our training programmes in Bangladesh and Jordan, meaning all programmes now have a running time until (at least) the end of 2028.
In total, the Orange Corners alumni community now counts almost 4,500 graduates, who in turn already supported more than 15,000 jobs for people around the globe. We were proud to formally launch the Orange Corners Alumni Platform together with ambitious new programming, which reflects our ongoing commitment to the growth of entrepreneurs well beyond their graduation from our incubation and acceleration programmes.
In terms of promoting access to finance for entrepreneurs, we celebrated the start of new Orange Corners Innovation Fund (OCIF) funding through launch events in many countries and – backed by a solid OCIF track record – helped various entrepreneurs gain access to commercial follow-up funding. Building on the experience of OCIF, we were also able to put into practice a partnership with the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank FMO and Village Capital under the name of Africa Ecosystem Catalyst Facility. Within this framework, the first group of entrepreneurs eligible for follow-up funding has been selected.
In 2025, we also continued our efforts to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems. This came in the form of various impactful projects, such as support for a movement to strengthen the Angolan food system, an initiative to stimulate youth-led innovations in the textile sector in Bangladesh, a project to strengthen the capacity of Burundian entrepreneurial support organisations and projects for entrepreneurs around entrepreneurial innovation within knowledge institutions in, among others, DRC and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
2025 also marked a year of learning and improving. Many lessons learnt stemmed from an outcome evaluation we launched in 2024 and finalised in 2025. Next to encouraging findings regarding survival rates of Orange Corners supported businesses and the positive effects of training and financing, it also showed further reflection is needed on the types of businesses that are supported for the programme to remain successful, for example. Through the Orange Corners research agenda we’ve also worked on unlocking data-driven insights for more impactful entrepreneurship support in low and middle-income countries beyond our own programme. For instance by looking at the diverse needs of SMEs and startups and considerations for formalisation. These sources for impro vements will continue to drive changes in our programme, also beyond 2026.
We appreciate that more and more organisations and institutions are recognising the power of entrepreneurship for social change. Also in 2025 we were able to foster new partnerships on this basis, for instance with private partners such as HEINEKEN with whom we signed a global partnership in support of Orange Corners alumni. In March 2025, current and prospective private partners joined us for a lunch in Amsterdam to discuss potential next steps to improve public-private collaboration. And through the launch of the Green, Digital and Inclusive Private Sector Development project in collaboration with the EU, we were able to seriously scale up the impact of the Orange Corners and Orange Corners Innovation Fund programmes in Ghana.
The success of Orange Corners truly stems from actors coming together and building a better world together through entrepreneurship. In that regard, we continue to thank our network of entrepreneurial support organisations for their successful implementation of the programme, Dutch diplomatic missions for the strong collaboration on strategic development and programme management, private partners for their generous financial and in-kind support and other partner organisations for their drive and commitment towards our shared mission.
We hope you’re inspired once again by the impactful stories featured in this year’s report. And we look forward to continue building – together!
Download your copy of the Orange Corners Annual Report 2025 below.
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