BID Tool: Digital platform for Business Investment Decision

Turning business ideas into investment-ready plans!

For development programs, the BID Tools is available as a web-based solution and as a downloadable Excel version that can be integrated into training and project activities. It is accessible across Windows, Android, and iOS platforms, ensuring usability for diverse beneficiaries. The tool is in English and requires internet connectivity for the web version, while the Excel format enables offline functionality, allowing use in rural or resource-constrained project sites.

This technology is pre-validated.

7•7

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 7/9; level of use 7/9

Adults 18 and over: Positive high

Adult farmers, entrepreneurs, cooperative members, and tissue culture lab staff are the primary users of the tool. They gain capacity in business planning, improve profitability, reduce financial risks, and create jobs through stronger seed enterprises.

Others: Positive low

Youth, People with Disabilities: The BID Tool is user-friendly and accessible even to those with limited business training, making it suitable for youth-led enterprises, start-ups, and inclusive cooperatives. It opens opportunities for marginalized groups to participate in seed systems, generate income, and build confidence in agribusiness

The poor: Positive high

Poor farmers and seed entrepreneurs benefit from more sustainable and profitable business models. By preventing oversupply and hidden losses, the tool helps protect scarce resources and increases income. Stronger seed businesses also improve the availability of affordable, quality planting materials for poor farmers.

Under 18: Positive medium

The BID Tool is not directly used by children, but by strengthening seed enterprises, it improves household food security and incomes. This means more resources for school fees, nutrition, and health, creating long-term benefits for children under 18.

Women: Positive high

he tool lowers barriers for women-led seed enterprises by simplifying financial planning. Women can better manage costs, attract financing, and expand their businesses. This empowers them economically and strengthens their role in decision-making within seed systems.

Farmer climate change readiness: Significant improvement

The tool supports scenario and sensitivity analysis, allowing enterprises to test “what-if” conditions (e.g., higher costs, lower sales, or shocks). This builds financial resilience and helps farmers prepare for uncertain climate and market conditions.

Environmental health: Moderately improves environmental health

By preventing resource wastage (land, inputs, labor) and encouraging efficiency, the BID Tool reduces environmental stress and supports healthier production systems.

Problem

Persistent challenges in seed enterprises reduce the long-term sustainability of donor-funded programs. Once external support ends, many enterprises struggle to survive.
Low financial and managerial capacity among businesses makes it difficult to translate development investments into lasting impact at scale.
Exclusion of women, youth, and smallholders from seed systems undermines development goals of equity, empowerment, and broad-based growth.
Absence of strong diagnostic tools makes it harder to monitor enterprise resilience, measure progress, and demonstrate return on investment to funders.

Solution

Sustainability challenges: The Tool strengthens enterprise capacity with structured financial and operational planning, ensuring businesses can survive after donor support ends.
Low managerial capacity: It standardizes business models (SWOT, PESTEL, BMC) that help enterprises grow stronger and scale donor investments.
Exclusion of women, youth, and smallholders: It highlights inclusive approaches in business planning, showing enterprises how to create value with and for underserved groups.
Weak monitoring and reporting: The Tool produces diagnostic reports and performance metrics that donors can use to track enterprise resilience, impact, and value for money.

Key points to design your program

Development partners can use the BID Tool to enhance enterprise support programs, ensure sustainable impact, and track performance. The points below outline what needs to be in place and the activities to prioritize for effective integration.

Include the BID Tool in enterprise support packages to strengthen capacity and financial viability.
Provide access to the web or Excel versions for project staff and enterprises.
Assign one account per enterprise or project officer, scaling with the number of supported businesses.
Collaborate with local NGOs, research institutes, financial partners, and enterprise trainers for guidance.
Budget primarily for training and support; the tool itself is free to use.
Train project staff and enterprises on entering data, running scenarios, generating reports, and interpreting outputs for decision-making.

IP

Open source / open access

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology’s development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology’s readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 7 out of 9

Semi-controlled environment: prototype

Level of use 7 out of 9

Common use by projects NOT connected to technology provider

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Kenya	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Nigeria	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Tanzania	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Uganda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - warm	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - warm	Tropic - cool
Arid
Semiarid
Subhumid
Humid

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 1: no poverty

Increases income for farmer-led enterprises, cooperatives, and tissue culture labs by reducing financial risks and improving profitability.

Goal 4: quality education

Builds business and financial literacy for seed entrepreneurs, youth, cooperatives, and TC lab staff through practical planning and training.

Goal 5: gender equality

Empowers women-led seed enterprises and TC labs with accessible financial planning tools, strengthening their role in seed systems.

Goal 8: decent work and economic growth

Creates jobs and improves enterprise performance by enabling sustainable seed businesses across both field-based enterprises and laboratories.

Goal 12: responsible production and consumption

Reduces waste and inefficiencies in seed production by aligning outputs from TC labs and multipliers with market demand.

Goal 17: partnerships for the goals

Strengthens collaboration among research institutes, NGOs, TC labs, farmer cooperatives, and private seed actors.

Web: http://bidtool.cipotato.org

Open the tool & sign in
Log in or register on the web version, or use the Excel version for offline work.
Start a new business plan
Enter your business background: mission, vision, objectives, sectors, products/services, customer segments, and organizational structure. This forms the foundation for all calculations.
Scan your context
Complete the SWOT and PESTEL sections to capture real market opportunities, risks, and regulations.
Define your business model
Fill in the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) and Business Model Canvas (BMC) to clarify who you serve, how you deliver, and how you earn revenue.
Map operations
List workflow stages from inputs to sales, linking products to stages so costs and outputs are correctly tracked.
Enter costs & sales
Add consumables, labor, assets/equipment, overheads, and Year-1 monthly sales projections (override auto-generated prices if needed).
Generate financials automatically
The tool creates Profit & Loss (5 years), Cash Flow, Balance Sheet, and Revolving Fund reports—showing revenues, expenses, and liquidity over time.
Check ratios automatically
Review profitability, liquidity, efficiency, and solvency/coverage ratios to evaluate business health and scalability.
Test “what-if” scenarios
Use Sensitivity Analysis (price, production cost, discount rate) to see how profits and risks change before investing.
Assess value & feasibility
View NPV, IRR, ROI, payback period, and optional valuations (DCF, asset-based, earnings multiplier) to confirm viability for investors or lenders.
Plan partnerships & risks
Complete the Partnership Canvas (who contributes what) and Risk Matrix (likelihood × impact) with mitigation steps.
Download & share
Export your business plan and reports (web or Excel) for internal approval, financing, or partner discussions.

In summary, enter your business basics, add costs and sales, and the BID Tool turns your inputs into a complete business plan with clear profitability, cash flow, and investment metrics.