Zuri Circle Network (ZCN), a pan-African network of women-led enterprises, has announced the deployment of capital to 98 women entrepreneurs selected under the second edition of its Fearless Female Founders accelerator programme.

The organisation said the programme received 2,810 applications and selected the 98 founders following a compliance and business-readiness screening process that required applicants to provide verified business registration, financial records and evidence of active operations.

According to ZCN, only 54.9 per cent of applicants passed the compliance requirements on their first submission, with the organisation saying the process was designed to establish a verified and investment-ready pipeline rather than rely solely on business ideas or founder potential.

The selected businesses operate across sectors including fashion, food production, agriculture, technology and professional services, with participating founders drawn from states including Lagos, Kano, Rivers and Borno.

The founders received direct capital support through a partnership with Union Bank, alongside structured mentorship, accountability programmes and access to Zuri Circle Network’s wider membership infrastructure, which the organisation said now comprises more than 1,400 verified women across Africa.

ZCN positions the programme as a response to the financing and formalisation challenges facing women entrepreneurs operating within Nigeria’s informal economy.

ZCN cited figures indicating that Nigeria’s informal economy accounts for 46.11 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, compared with a reported global average of 21.39 per cent. It also said 95 per cent of working Nigerian women operate within the informal economy, while women account for 35 per cent of informal business owners.

The organisation further cited research by McKinsey and the Council on Foreign Relations estimating that closing Nigeria’s gender economic participation gap could add $229 billion, or about 23 per cent, to the country’s GDP.

ZCN said Fearless Female Founders 2.0 was designed to address the challenge through a combination of verification, business readiness and access to capital.

Commenting on the initiative, Union Bank said its partnership with ZCN was aimed at helping to bridge the gap between women entrepreneurs and formal financial capital.

“Union Bank’s partnership with Zuri Circle Network reflects our commitment to closing the real, measurable gap between Nigerian women entrepreneurs and the formal capital they’ve historically been locked out of,” the bank said.

It added that ZCN’s compliance-gated model provided a verified pipeline of businesses that could meet institutional risk and underwriting requirements.

Vibranium Valley, another partner of the programme, said the initiative demonstrated the potential of connecting founder development with verification, capital and institutional partnerships.

“Fearless Female Founders 2.0 demonstrates what is possible when founder development is connected to verification, capital and institutional partnerships,” Vibranium Valley said.

Promasidor, through its Loya Milk brand, also described its participation as part of its commitment to supporting Nigerian communities.

“Seeing the calibre and diversity of the founders who came through this programme confirmed exactly why structured, verified pipelines like ZCN’s matter,” the company said.

Founder and Executive Director of Zuri Circle Network, Linda Ada Obi, said the programme was designed to address a structural problem rather than simply identify talented entrepreneurs.

“The real story here isn’t that we found 98 talented women — talented women were never the scarce resource. The scarce resource was a verification system institutions could actually trust. That’s what we built,” Obi said.

“2,810 applications and a 54.9 per cent first-submission pass rate isn’t a vanity number — it’s proof that when you build real infrastructure, real capital follows. We are just getting started.”

Zuri Circle Network is a verified pan-African network of women-led enterprises focused on improving women’s access to capital, knowledge and business networks.

The organisation operates a three-tier membership platform comprising Access, Premium and Premium Plus, alongside dedicated Health and Wealth tracks. It also runs the Fearless Female Founders accelerator in partnership with financial institutions and other corporate organisations.