DIGITAL AFRICA : “We invest in startups that use technology to transform the continent for the benefit of people and future generations”

How would you sum up your first five years?

The main challenge was to implement a presidential initiative with a strong vision. We had to change the way we work and collaborate and learn to work again with the continent’s entrepreneurs, who are young, depoliticized and already part of the next world. The main challenge of the last five years has been to turn a vision into a sustainable structure that can act on the ground on a daily basis, especially in terms of seed investment. That’s what Digital Africa offers entrepreneurs today. Everything we do is open access and designed to respond quickly to the needs of our community. In other words, we come with efficient, transparent working tools and a culture of performance. We use data to monitor our performance and ensure that our resources are used wisely. We are organized like a startup.

A number of programs have been set up (Bridge, Talents 4 Startups, Fuzé, etc.). What impact have they had?

We are delighted with the success of our Talent 4 Startups program, which attracted more than 10,300 applications from young people in Africa. In this pilot edition, we were able to train 294 students, working with nine partner training organizations in 10 different countries. The invaluable partnership we have built with Make It and German Development Cooperation has enabled us to expand the program even further. To ensure the employability of the young people we train, we use job fairs and speed pitching events to connect this talent with the start-ups that are looking for them. This gives them the skills they need to become successful entrepreneurs or join existing technology companies, creating employment opportunities for themselves and others. Building on this success, we are currently preparing the second edition of this program, aiming to provide 1,000 scholarships across Africa and strengthen the professional integration strategy of our edtech partners.

We are also very proud of the launch of our small ticket investment facility, Fuzé, which is structured to easily meet the funding needs of seed stage startups in French-speaking Africa. Through a network of 60 venture builders, including a number of leading players, we identify startups that can quickly obtain a funding ticket by applying through a dedicated interface and following a streamlined assessment process. Since last September, 800 startups have applied, of which a quarter have been approved and 14 have received final approval. Fuzé relies above all on an alliance with our local partners, and we give co-investment the highest priority. For example, we are pleased to announce that Neolean, a Senegalese edtech we funded at the end of last year, has just received funding from the Délégation Générale à l’Entrepreneuriat rapide des femmes et des jeunes (DER/FJ) in Senegal, following our Fuzé ticket.

The main challenge in five years was to transform a political vision into a lasting structure. That’s what Digital Africa is offering entrepreneurs today

In the meantime, you have changed your status to become a subsidiary of Proparco with its own budget. For greater impact?

We have been a subsidiary of Proparco for 1 year, a member of the AFD Group (Agence Française de Développement), dedicated to supporting and assisting seed-stage digital entrepreneurs on the continent, with a budget of €30 million over three years. The aim is to act as a catalyst for opportunities, funding and visibility for startups developing technological solutions to serve the real economy and the people of Africa with strong partners. We have really opted for a Europe-Africa approach rather than a France-Africa approach. The team has also grown, to 20 people today, with a real diversity of backgrounds and expertise. We are also fortunate to have 15 connectors in 15 countries across the continent who work alongside us to inspire and drive our actions. What I am proud of is that we have succeeded in creating the conditions for peace and sustainability. Even though we still have to explain our approach, which is unprecedented in the institutional world, we manage to maintain this flexibility in order to respond as effectively as possible to the needs of startups, and we adopt a lean approach. For example, when we set up the Bridge program, it was designed with a budget of 5 million euros to respond to the COVID-19 emergency. It worked so well that we wanted to keep it and make it an in-house product, so we added €2 million to it. 

It’s the same with Brain. We felt it was necessary to encourage the emergence of more high-tech startups from the academic world. After studying the market, we decided to join forces with OST and MIT to make the Brain program pan-African and add a European dimension.

Fuzé, is even more emblematic. We felt it was necessary to provide an agile interface that responded to the capabilities of startups. We decided to beta test the process in 5 countries before rolling it out last January. Today we are running it autonomously. We received over 700 applications, of which 450 were eligible, all of which were analyzed. An investment committee meets every two weeks to analyze around ten applications. We now award an average of 6 tickets per month.

We don’t claim to be wizards, but we listen to the market and move forward on a ‘test and learn’ basis. And the impact is real. In total, 2,600 entrepreneurs have benefited from our programs. 263 startups in the truest sense of the word. We’ve added value and we can measure it. Their businesses have grown since.

We are now present in 31 countries with 80 institutional partners on the ground. We have raised a total of €130 million for our community, including €30 million for early stage alone.

What is the roadmap for the next five years?

With our administrators, Proparco and Expertise France, our ambition is to rapidly create a strategic committee of IT experts.  We want to become a benchmark player. With Talents 4 Startup, we’ve grown to 100 scholarships. With Fuzé, for example, Orange is following our example and has entrusted us with managing 500 million euros.

The aim is to act be a catalyst for opportunities, funding and visibility for startups developing technological solutions to serve the real economy and people in Africa, with strong partners acting on the ground

We are convinced that the emergence of African tech champions will depend on the players joining forces. We believe that effective collaboration between institutions, funding sources, skills experts, research institutions and startups is essential to achieve this goal. Everyone has a role to play in creating an enabling environment for innovation and business growth. After all, Silicon Valley is an excellent example of how billions of dollars of investment can help stimulate private initiative and innovation!

We take a data-driven approach and only back companies that use technology to serve the real economy. We invest in startups that are working to realize societal ambitions. Working with partners, we are developing a data infrastructure that will enable us to get to know the real users of the startups we fund and measure their impact on improving people’s lives.

Our performance metrics are built from a financial perspective, but more importantly from a social perspective. These indicators are in line with Digital Africa’s values. We seek to address the specific needs of entrepreneurs. Our goal is to promote inclusive development through African-made digital innovation. We firmly believe that technological solutions from Africa are and will be a great source of inspiration for solving the global problems that our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world brings us!