LightCastle Signs MoU with GRID Ventures Limited

LightCastle Partners has signed an MoU with GRID Venture Limited, a company that designs and sells modern home-based furniture. The signing ceremony took place on July 19, 2022, at CoSpace Bangladesh, a co-working space based in Banani, Dhaka. Fahad Ibne Wahab (Co-founder & CEO) from GRID Ventures while Omar Farhan Khan, Senior Business Consultant at LightCastle Partners, and Saud Khandaker Hossain, Business Consultant at LightCastle Partners were present on behalf of their respective organizations.

The MoU has been signed to onboard GRID as an Access to Market partner on the B-SkillFUL Phase II project funded by Swisscontact. Through this partnership with LightCastle, GRID will bring an impact to build sustainable growth in the MSMEs sector.

About B-SkillFUL

Building Skills for Unemployed and Underemployed Labor (B-SkillFUL) aims to improve the well-being of poor and disadvantaged people by increasing their access to the labor market and increasing their income while safeguarding their fundamental labor rights. Workers and employers in the informal sector, where around 80% of jobs are created, lack knowledge of legal and regulatory frameworks and are largely unaware of what decent work practices entail. As a result, workers in informal sector enterprises are subject to dangerous working conditions and exploitation.

The program also creates opportunities for coaching, mentoring, and providing advisory services to SMEs through Business Development Service (BDS) providers. These services include business planning, human resource development, product design, production improvements, inventory control, marketing, and finance. BDS providers can gain access and opportunities to engage with SMEs in peri-urban and rural areas and expand their clientele beyond the major cities.

LightCastle Partners is currently working as one of the BDS providers in the B-SkillFUL Phase II program since October 2021. LightCastle’s approach will include providing business knowledge, access to market, access to finance opportunities, and business environment improvement to 100 MSMEs across five regions in Bangladesh. LightCastle’s value proposition is to provide a blended finance program, which is essentially a mix of government/non-profit grants, equity investments, and loans, investing in a company with the right sequence at the right proportion, will create sustainable growth for the entrepreneurship ecosystem.