28/08/2026
The Bahari Innovation Challenge Graduation brought together entrepreneurs, partners, investors, and key ecosystem players to celebrate the journey of the participating ventures while looking ahead at the partnerships, financing opportunities, and collaborations that will continue to drive their growth.
A key highlight of the event was the discussion around blended capital and the need to bridge the financing gap for early-stage Blue Economy enterprises. The proposed approach combines grant funding, concessional and catalytic capital, and equity to de-risk early innovation, strengthen businesses, and help transition promising enterprises into commercially viable and investment-ready businesses.
The model will focus on high-impact sectors including sustainable fisheries, aquaculture and mariculture, blue carbon, eco-tourism, waste management, and the circular economy.
The graduation also marked the beginning of exciting new partnerships, including:
🔹Sote Hub x SIYB Association of East Africa – strengthening entrepreneurship development and business support.
🔹Sote Hub × SIDO – a new collaboration that will see the signing of an MoU on standardisation and quality product labels
🔹Sote Hub × Equity Bank – exploring pathways to improve access to capital and financing for SMEs.
And there’s more on the horizon! 🚀 The event also saw the announcement of StawiBluu, a new project that will build on the work and partnerships established through the Bahari Innovation Challenge to further support Blue Economy MSMEs, strengthen their businesses, improve access to finance and markets, and create sustainable economic opportunities.
As part of this next phase, 43 enterprises from the Bahari Innovation Challenge will transition into the StawiBluu project, giving them an opportunity to continue their growth journey with deeper support and new pathways to finance and markets.
The Bahari Innovation Challenge is supported by the GIZ ProsperBlue Project, commissioned by BMZ and co-financed by the European Union, and implemented by SoteHub and GIZ GmbH in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.
