Eligibility

Eligibility is the first serious gate on an Ardent CrowdFund raise. It exists to protect two groups at once: investors, who are trusting the platform to pre-filter for businesses that are real, compliant, and ready for public capital, and your own team, who would otherwise sink weeks into an application that was never going to clear SEC Ghana's rules. This page is the honest checklist, read it before anything else.

Regulated by SEC Ghana

The five eligibility criteria

Every issuer on Ardent CrowdFund must meet all five of the criteria below. These map directly to the SEC Ghana Crowdfunding Guidelines 2024 and to our own platform conduct rules; we do not grant exceptions.

1. 1

   Ghana-registered company

   Required

   Your business must be incorporated in Ghana with the Office of the Registrar of Companies and hold a current Certificate to Commence Business. Sole proprietorships, unregistered partnerships, and purely foreign parent entities are not eligible, though pan-African groups with a Ghanaian operating subsidiary can raise through that subsidiary.

2. 2

   Minimum 12 months of operating history

   12 months+

   We require at least 12 consecutive months of real trading activity, revenue in the bank, customers invoiced, suppliers paid. Pre-revenue startups and pure-concept companies are not eligible for standard campaigns; they should explore grant-stage angel networks instead.

3. 3

   Audited accounts or recent management accounts

   Financials

   Issuers with revenue above GHS 1,000,000 in the last financial year must submit accounts audited by a practising ICAG member. Below that threshold, we accept management accounts signed off by the CFO or a qualified external accountant, supported by bank statements for the same period.

4. 4

   No outstanding SEC Ghana enforcement actions

   Clean record

   The company, its directors, and any 10%+ beneficial owners must be clear of open SEC Ghana enforcement actions, public censures, or unresolved complaints. Historic matters that have been formally closed with the regulator do not automatically disqualify you, but must be disclosed up-front.

5. 5

   AML / KYC compliant

   AML / KYC

   The business, every director, and every beneficial owner above the 10% threshold must pass our anti-money-laundering and Know-Your-Customer checks. This mirrors Ghana's Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044) and the SEC conduct rules, no exceptions, even for well-known companies.

Instruments Ardent supports

Once eligibility is cleared, you can raise under one, or, in some cases, a combination, of three instrument types. Picking the right one is a substantive decision; the analyst team will help you choose during application review.

Each instrument has different disclosure, cap-table, and reporting obligations. We'll walk through all of them in Preparing your offer document.

Raise limits under the Crowdfunding Guidelines 2024

SEC Ghana's guidelines cap a standard crowdfunding raise to keep the instrument properly retail-friendly. On Ardent CrowdFund the standard band is:

• Minimum raise size: GHS 500,000.
• Maximum raise size: GHS 5,000,000 for standard campaigns open to retail investors.
• Campaign duration: 21 to 90 days (see Running your campaign).

Accredited- and institutional-only offerings can go higher under different SEC Ghana tiers, but those are handled case-by-case by our capital-markets desk rather than through the standard workflow. If your raise is above GHS 5 million, flag it at the start of your application so we can route it correctly.

Excluded sectors

Governance and beneficial ownership checks

Beyond the five primary criteria, Ardent applies standard governance checks that mirror what a typical institutional investor would run before writing a cheque:

• Clean cap table. No disputed share issues, unsigned shareholder resolutions, or off-register side letters.
• Director due diligence. Every director must pass identity, sanctions, and PEP screening, plus a background check on past regulatory history.
• 10% beneficial owners. The same checks apply to anyone owning 10% or more of the issuer, directly or indirectly.
• Board approval. A signed board resolution authorising the raise, the proposed instrument, and the platform engagement must accompany the application.

These checks happen in parallel with the financial review during due diligence; they rarely delay an otherwise clean application, but they can surface quickly if something has been missed at incorporation.

Passed all five? You are ready to apply

If your business clears the five eligibility criteria, fits within the GHS 500,000–5,000,000 band, and operates outside the excluded sectors, continue to Application process. That page walks you through the issuer account, the application form, the standard document pack, and what due diligence will look like.