“Supporting Made-in-Africa digital innovations”

AFRICA NEWS AGENCY

“Supporting Made-in-Africa digital innovations”

Credit photo : Digital Africa

Digital Africa publishes its white paper entitled ‘Supporting Made-in-Africa digital innovations’. Building on recent successes such as its Bridge program, Digital Africa is looking to move away from its initial non-profi t model with a refreshed governance structure, a new business model and the ambition to get closer to the private sector. As part of its white paper, Digital Africa also releases its updated roadmap for 2022-2025.

After 4 years of existence, Digital Africa, a €130 million pan-African, European and French public-funded organization committed to boosting African start-ups, is reinventing its model to support the growth of its activities and better serve the needs of African tech entrepreneurs. To do so, Digital Africa has joined Proparco (investment arm of the Agence Française de Développement – AFD), bringing additional expertise to their existing investment programs. Digital Africa would be positioned as the continuum to Proparco, focusing on early stage startups. The objective would be for Digital Africa to be able to deploy direct seed fi nancing capa-

bilities for high-potential start-ups across the continent. Thanks to this unique model, Digital Africa stands as a one-stop shop for the African tech scene, acting like a super-aggregator of data, policy knowledge, capabilities and funding opportunities.

Digital Africa also reinvents its governance with a new partnershipbased model. A strategic committee will be deployed bringing together ‘doers’ from key African tech ecosystems to guide Digital Africa’s actions. The objective is to better refl ect the diversity of African tech ecosystems from both a geographical and skill perspective, by bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, training, and research organizations, incubators, and innovation policy experts from key tech ecosystems across the African continent.

This new business model and governance structure will strengthen Digital Africa’s bottom-up approach, enabling the organization to constantly update its programs, based on calls for projects and direct interactions with African entrepreneurs and partners on the ground.

Stéphan-Eloise Gras, CEO of Digital Africa, declared “After four years of existence, we are more than ever convinced that Made in Africa Technology is key for a more inclusive and sustainable growth. This is exactly why our goal is to boost African start-ups and tech ecosystems. And the best way to do so is to reinvent our model, becoming a public-private entity guided by Strategic Committee, with a diversifi ed business model and extended capabilities.” in Africa, and €3.4 million out of the BRIDGE fund’s €5 million budget have already been allocated. The fi rst loans were signed with ten start-ups from all over Africa with tickets ranging from 150,000 euros to 600,000 euros per company. Three of the ten start-ups subsequently raised Series A, B and C equity rounds on the back of BRIDGE fi nancing. Ten start-ups have already received fi nancing in this framework.

Agility and responsiveness, the guiding principles of Bridge Fund

Bridge Fund by Digital Africa, a successful response to pressing issues for African Tech

An updated roadmap for 2022-2025

BRIDGE is a fi ve-million euros fund, launched by Digital Africa and deployed by Proparco to address both short-term and long-term fi nancing challenges for African start-ups. It aims to support African start-ups that are impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and those in their seed phase or between two fundraising rounds by giving them access to venture debt, a form of fi nancing currently lacking across Africa. 87% of African startups don’t have access to any fi nancing, and only 20% of SMEs have access to bank loans. This is a stark contrast to the fact that Africa is the continent with the highest number of investors, and where SMEs generate 90% of formal jobs.

In a few months only, over 230 startups applied from across 40 countries

The large number of start-ups funded in a short time frame was made possible by the agile process implemented by Digital Africa and Proparco, by targeting high-potential start-ups that are at least 18 months-old and have already received funding from an investor or a recognized structure. Another key criterion to secure support is dedication “THE OBJECTIVE WOULD BE FOR DIGITAL to the African tech ecosystem.

AFRICA TO BE ABLE TO DEPLOY DIRECT Candidate companies must achieve 75% of their turnover SEED FINANCING CAPABILITIES FOR HIGH- (minimum €200,000) on the

POTENTIAL START-UPS ACROSS THE continent or have at least half of their teams based there. In CONTINENT” line with this ambition, the sectors targeted by BRIDGE are strategic for African economies: agriculture, energy, internet access, education, health, fi nancial inclusion, logistics and green mobility. To read the White paper ‘Supporting Made-in-Africa digital innovations’

As part of its white paper, Digital Africa also releases an updated roadmap for 2022-2025 together with a refreshed set of objectives, with the ambition to support 200 high-impact African start-ups. To achieve this ambitious objective, the white paper clearly outlines a set of renewed objectives and 17 programs organized in 3 focus areas: 1) Equipping highimpact and digitally enabled startups, 2) Sourcing African and Global Finance to scale up projects, and 3) Developing research and policy recommendations in support of MadeIn-Africa Digital Innovations.