The French government committed an additional $150 M to African tech startups
As part of a revamped Digital Africa programme, French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged a fresh EUR 130 million (US $150 million) to help 500 African companies.
Digital Africa, which was founded in 2018 with the goal of equipping African tech entrepreneurs with the skills they need to design and scale-up game-changing innovations for the real economy, brings together startups, academia, incubators, institutional financiers, venture capitalists, and technology clusters to help develop the African startup space.
President Macron’s renewed financial commitment of EUR 130 million, pledged at the New Africa-France Summit last week, spans the next three years, while Digital Africa has been reorganised and is now part of Proparco, the Agence Française de Développement’s private sector subsidiary (AFD).
Digital Africa also announced a number of new initiatives during the occasion. It also launched the Fuzé initiative, which focuses on Francophone Africa and seeks to assist at least 200 innovative entrepreneurs via a new small ticket fund by early 2022. This will offer funding in the form of repayable loans in phases ranging from EUR 10,000 (US $12,000) to EUR200,000 (US $230,000).
In terms of skills, Digital Africa has partnered with Make IT and the German government to launch Talent4StartUps, a fellowship programme that connects tech and digitally skilled professionals with companies that are actively hiring.
More generally, while having the possibility to collect funding from other public or private donors, Digital Africa will continue to expand non-financial operations such as knowledge generation, training, networking, research, and support for regulatory framework evolution. Its new position as a Proparco subsidiary will make this possible.
“Digital Africa’s new organisation, redefined with our partners, allows us to reinforce our commitment to “made in Africa” tech innovations and become a factory for future African unicorns. Startups need a one-stop-shop combining training, research, project-structuring, support to pro-tech and pro-innovation reforms, and financing,” said Digital Africa’s chief executive officer (CEO) Stéphan-Eloise Gras.
“From now on, thanks to the merger with Proparco, they will find in Digital Africa a partner capable of offering them support from ideation and seed to growth and hypergrowth. By putting tech at the service of transparency and efficiency in development aid, and by getting closer to the private sector, Digital Africa wants to make a long-lasting difference.”
The Digital Africa team is now planning a roadshow at the end of this quarter that will stop in many African areas to develop relationships with important partners and stakeholders, promote the programmes, and welcome African companies to apply. These field visits will also be used to finalise new initiatives, such as the “product-market fit academy,” which will be introduced in 2022 and aims to enhance the appropriateness of digital solutions for local markets.
