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I&P Acceleration Technologies aims to contribute to the emergence of the first African digital startups in countries where financing solutions are still scarce. The program will support around ten entrepreneurs, giving them access to appropriate financing and skills.
Program overview
I&P Acceleration Technologies targets African digital startups (or startups whose a signicant part of their activity is linked to digital).
The program will provide selected companies with financing support. The funding will allow these companies to move beyond poof of concept to demonstrate their model and continue their growth. This financing will often be the first ‘’professional’’ financing, apart from family or friends financing.
The startups financed will also benefit from capacity building through external technical assistance support. This support will focus on technological issues (platform development for example) but also on the typical issues faced by young companies (accounting reinforcement, marketing support, team training, etc.)
Context: why supporting the digital sector?
Investisseurs & Partenaires has been financing and supporting small and medium-sized African companies since 2002 and has clearly observed that African entrepreneurs have taken the digital turn in the last few years.
These startups are the place for technical innovations and of specific use to African situations: the emergence of pay-as-you-go for access to essential services (energy, water), access to healthcare services and health, online training services, artificial intelligence programs, innovative means of payment, dissemination of information (climate, market prices), or improvement and contribution to existing services (e.g. digital logistics to overcome the last mile problem).
African entrepreneurs took the switch to digital in a very clear way. The geographical coverage of the 3G and 4G network, the growing improvement of the Internet network, and the strong and rapid penetration of mobile phones are key factors in this trend.
However, these digital companies require specific financing and support tools :
⇒ They present a much higher level of risk than their counterparts in “conventional” sectors, their business models being often innovative.
⇒ They aim for a rapid and significant scale-up (large number of service users), and indeed they face significant financing needs very early in their development cycle.
⇒ They also have an extremely high potential for impact.
The Sponsor: the French Development Agency
The AFD group finances, supports, and accelerates transitions towards a more just and sustainable. Climate, biodiversity, peace, education, urbanization, health, governance… Its teams are involved in more than 4000 projects in 115 countries and French overseas territories.
Since 2016, the agency has been actively supporting digital innovation on the African continent, through initiatives such as the AFD Digital Challenge startup competition, the Afric’innov, AFIDBA, and the Social and Inclusive Business Camp (SIBC). The I&P Acceleration Technologies program is financed by the Digital Africa seed fund, which is a component of the Choose Africa offer by which AFD Group commits to devoting 2,5 billion euros to African startups, VSEs and SMEs by 2022.
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Latest News
 I&P Acceleration Technologies: What is the program's status?News | 14/10/2021 Through the I&P Acceleration Technologies program, Investisseurs & Partenaires finances and provides technical assistance to digital-oriented African SMEs. These startups are the place of technical innovations specific to African realities and have a great impact... |
 I&P Acceleration Technologies makes a new investment: Sayna in MadagascarEntrepreneurs | 30/06/2021 I&P Acceleration Technologies, a program dedicated to African digital startups led by Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), and Miarakap, an impact investment company dedicated to financing and supporting high-potential small and medium-sized enterprises in Madagascar, are... |
 I&P finances two tech companies in Côte d'Ivoire through its I&P Acceleration Technologies programNews | 07/04/2021 Keiwa and Legafrik, two Ivorian start-ups operating in the tech sector, have recently joined the portfolio of I&P Acceleration Technologies, a program aiming to finance and support about fifteen digital start-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa. These two companies will benefit... |
 Interview of Ranto Andriambololona, Founder of HaiRun Technology and SmartPredictEntrepreneurs | 19/04/2021 A native of Antananarivo and a graduate of the Institut Supérieur Polytechnique de Madagascar, Ranto Andriambololona worked for 15 years in France before returning to Madagascar in 2018 with two entrepreneurial projects in the tech sector. Three years later, HaiRun Technology and... |
 Jiro-Ve announces a new impact investment to triple access to renewable energy in MadagascarEntrepreneurs | 11/03/2021 Jiro-Ve, a pioneering company in rural electrification in Madagascar, is completing its last funding round. Besides Miarakap and I&P (through its program I&P Acceleration Technologies), Jiro-Ve has received the backing of the international humanitarian agency Catholic Relief... |
 A $50,000 loan to Malian startup Teliman through KivaEntrepreneurs | 24/02/2021 The Malian company Teliman, supported by our program I&P Acceleration Technologies, recently received a $50,000 loan through the online platform Kiva. This loan will help the startup provide quality jobs, health insurance, and productive asset ownership to Malian youth moto-taxi... |
 I&P Quaterly Newsletter: Samir Abdelkrim reviews the challenges of the tech sector in the time of Covid 19News | 15/10/2020 This edition of I&P's quarterly newsletter focuses on the Tech sector, with an editorial by Samir Abdelkrim (EMERGING Valley, StartupBRICS) and a review of the first financing operations carried out by our I&P Acceleration Technologies program. We also reflect on the opening of... |
 The program I&P Acceleration Technologies is expanding in the tech sector in Sub-Saharan AfricaNews | 17/09/2020 Launched a few months thanks to the support of the French Development Agency through the Digital Africa initiative, the program I&P Acceleration Technologies welcomes three high-potential African digital startups in its portfolio. Read more about I&P Acceleration Technologies... |
 I&P launches the program I&P Acceleration Technologies, with AFD's supportNews | 04/12/2019 Investisseurs & Partenaires is launching I&P Acceleration Technologies, an acceleration program dedicated to promising African digital start-ups. The program is one of six initiatives funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), which is mobilising €15 million under... |
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