Our Work

ECatalyst's purpose is to transform developing communities through their entrepreneurs. We believe that creating viral entrepreneurial growth in a developing community through Entrepreneurial Ecosystems is the only true and sustainable solution to poverty. 

We believe in the power of entrepreneurship to create sustainable development through job creation and economic impact, and that SMEs* can transform not just individual lives but entire economies. 

Our entrepreneurs work together in groups (cohorts) to develop their businesses and connect to other entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders. As these catalytic networks of stakeholders grow, it builds the local Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, the environment which spawns new entrepreneurial ventures and in which all entrepreneurs thrive. 

ECatalyst is a US nonprofit that builds for-profit entities in developing communities which become the self-sustaining engines of new, growth-oriented business creation. Each of these locally-owned entities functions like  a decentralized incubator made up of interconnected cohorts of entrepreneurs working together to refine their ideas, seek capital, and grow into economy-impacting businesses. As entrepreneurs gain traction, they move into more centralized cohorts with other entrepreneurs at similar stages of growth. 

*SMEs = Small and Medium Enterprises, are businesses capitalized at $20,000 to $500,000, and are the primary job creators and the driving force in any developED economy. In developING communities, however, SMEs are few in number (watch the video on the “Missing Middle“), which is one of the main reasons these communities struggle to grow economically, create jobs, and move out of poverty.