Building a Fundraising & Financial Growth Roadmap with MIT Sloan SEID

Girlified announces a strategic partnership with the Sloan Entrepreneurs for International Development (SEID) program — a milestone in our scale-up journey toward continental growth in the biodegradable menstrual hygiene market.

Through this engagement, a team of graduate consultants from MIT Sloan will work closely with Girlified between November 2025 and January 2026 to develop a comprehensive financial planning and fundraising roadmap. The project will involve deep financial analysis, investor discovery, market benchmarking, and the development of a compelling investor-facing pitch deck that clearly communicates Girlified's impact, commercial potential, and long-term sustainability model.

The collaboration aims to strengthen our financial architecture, refine unit economics, and help identify mission-aligned partners ranging from grant funders to equity and impact investors.

This partnership is centred around building Girlified's financial narrative in a manner that translates our technical work, R&D investment, and community impact into investor-ready materials. The MIT team will map global funding opportunities in women's health, plastics reduction, circular economy, and climate innovation, while also developing an investor pipeline database and a multi-year fundraising strategy tailored to our scale-up goals.

Beyond pitch deck development and investor research, the project will create a three-year roadmap detailing step-by-step actions from early fundraising to long-term capital mobilisation, including engagement strategies for international VCs, gender-lens funds, DFIs, government programs and humanitarian procurement channels.

Project deliverables include an investor pitch deck communicating impact, commercial potential, and long-term sustainability; an investor pipeline database; and a 2026–2028 fundraising plan. Leadership engagement includes interviews, financial reviews, and operations/impact alignment, while also exploring connections with the MIT Impact Investing Club and the Kuo Sharper Center.

This partnership reinforces Girlified's commitment to building a scalable and investment-ready business that can transform menstrual health access in Africa while eliminating plastic pollution from disposable sanitary products. With over 350,000 packs already sold using locally sourced banana fibre and cotton, Girlified is entering a new phase that demands robust manufacturing capacity, equipment financing, and strategic capital deployment. The SEID collaboration will be instrumental in helping us unlock that growth.

We are proud to work with the MIT Sloan SEID program, not only for the world-class expertise the team brings, but also because it aligns with our belief in data-driven decision-making, research-rooted product development, and high-impact innovation. Together, we are building a future where biodegradable menstrual pads are accessible, affordable, and manufactured on African soil at scale.

On behalf of the entire Girlified team, our founder, Emadago Oghenekevwe William, wishes to thank the entire SEID team, most especially Chloe Delfau, for leading this initiative.