AFRICA – Digital Africa, a platform that brings together multinational community of partners that support Africa’s digital entrepreneurs has secured US$152 million in funding from the French government to support African start-ups.
Launched in 2018 by the French Development Agency, Digital Africa’s mission is to promote African innovation and entrepreneurship among tech startups.
It is a collaborative initiative designed for African entrepreneurs and was built through the new Africa-France relationship.
Earlier this month, the Digital Africa team met with French minister of ICT Cédric O to present the Digital Africa strategy which was welcomed and supported by the minister who voiced praise and support for the work being conducted by Digital Africa.
Board VP and interim president of Digital Africa Kizito Okechukwu was in Paris to present the new strategy to various stakeholders where an agreement was reached that the funding capacity for African start-ups will be increased from US$76 million to US$152 million.
He also had a meeting with Remy Rioux, CEO of Agence Française de Développement (AFD), which is the custodian organisation of Digital Africa.
Rioux also backed the Digital Africa initiative and is looking forward to offering AFD’s full support to Africa’s start-ups via Digital Africa.
“Digital Africa plans to launch its new strategy towards the end of the year and will work closely with various key partners in Africa’s ecosystem to ensure start-ups have the capacity to start, scale and become successful global brands”
Kizito Okechukwu, – vice president, Digital Africa
Digital Africa focuses on skills development and knowledge communities contributing to the emergence of a regulatory environment conducive to innovation in Africa, technical assistance, projects and business financing (debt and equity) as well as market access for Africa’s high-impact start-ups.
It has presence in various African countries with headquarters in Paris, France.
Some of its partners and alliances include: AfriLabs, a network organisation of 202 innovation centres across 46 African countries; Digital Observer 4 Africa, a platform to identify digital projects and open datasets in Africa; and Data 4 Digital Africa, an open data infrastructure to enable entrepreneurs to test their models with open source data.
Part of Digital Africa’s strategy includes developing a white paper to guide the organisation over the next three years on how to support Africa’s high-impact start-ups.
Rima Le Coguic, director for Africa at the French Development Agency’s AFD, says Digital Africa aims to continue deepening and expanding its activities across the continent.
“Digital Africa’s vision is one of an Africa where the digital transformation enables inclusive development and where technical solutions improves the quality of life, support the real economy and gradually become global references,” statesLe Coguic.
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