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 partnering with Sayna, the first African Edtech & crowdsourcing platform.
Created in 2018 by a talented young Malagasy entrepreneur, Sayna is a startup specialized in digital training and outsourcing of IT projects, carried out by African developers via a micro-tasking platform.
Sayna intends to address a twofold problem: the lack of training in the digital sector in Africa, and the gap between the supply of digital talent and the growing demand of companies in the context of their digital transformation.
Sayna offers digital skills training and provides solutions that allow the students to enter the job market. To date, Sayna has trained nearly 200 students.
Today, Sayna aims to develop a tech startup model based on two pillars:
⇒ A paying online training platform for learners that allows them to follow, evaluate and validate their learning, but also to have access to company IT projects corresponding to the learning they have validated during their training.
⇒ A "microtasking" platform that allows companies to outsource their IT projects more efficiently, which are divided into distributed micro-tasks and assigned to freelance developers registered on the platform.
The promoter of the project, Matina Razafimahefa, is a young Malagasy entrepreneur of 23 years old, winner of several awards. At 20 years old, she decided to stop her studies to devote herself fully to the deployment of the project and has surrounded herself with advisors and experienced business angels.
Sayna is financed and supported by I&P Acceleration Technologies, a €2.5 million program aimed at financing and supporting fifteen digital start-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa, supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) through the Digital Africa initiative.
As such, Sayna benefits from a €100,000 repayable advance from the I&P Acceleration Technologies program to :
⇒ Finalize and launch the micro tasking platform
⇒ Roll out the training programs in partnership with a leading player in Bootcamp training, Holberton (Silicon Valley)
⇒ Train 200 students by the end of 2021
Sayna's ambition is to :
• Enable 8,000 people in Africa to enter the digital industry through its training and have more than 3,500 people working on its micro task platform.
• Meet the IT needs of 300 SMEs and start-ups in the French-speaking world.
• Complete a Series A fundraising of approximately €3 million in 2022 to accelerate growth and finance a pan-African expansion in West Africa.
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 from seed financing and strategic support, provided by I&P Acceleration Technologies and the team of Comoé Capital, I&P's partner in Côte d'Ivoire.
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 SmartPredict are growing rapidly and have more than 150 employees.
Keiwa is a simplified app dedicated to accounting, financial, and reserve management created by three young Ivorians, Fabrice KOFFI, Bertrand DAGO, and Terrence KONDOU.
The app is for African SMEs with a monitoring need for their day-to-day operations, structures with several sites, and partners providing services to these SMEs (suppliers, financial institutions, and telecom operators).
With this app, the user can save its daily operations, manage its stocks and access a clear activity report in real-time. Keiwa also allows one to monitor its activities remotely and share selective information with selected partners.
Keiwa platform is available on Apple and Google Stores and the web.
The entrepreneurs
Keiwa was co-founded by three young Ivorians, Fabrice KOFFI, Bertrand DAGO, and Terrence Kondou.
Fabrice Koffi is Keiwa's CEO. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting. He accumulates several years of experience in various consulting firms (Administrative and Financial Manager of Agritecno West Africa, Partner and co-manager of Urim Thummim Conseil).
Bertrand Dago is co-founder and CTO of KEiwa. He has a Diploma of Higher Technician in Electronic and Computer Systems (2013).
Terrence Kondou is a co-founder and Programmer. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering (2017) and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Methods Applied to Business Management.
Partnership with I&P
Keiwa is financed and supported by I&P Acceleration Technologies, a €2,5 million program aiming at financing and supporting some fifteen digital start-ups in sub-Saharian Africa. This program is supported by the Digital Africa initiative (AFD).
The partnership notably aims at;
• Reinforcing commercial and marketing teams
• Supporting the pan-African development of the app
Expected impacts
• Support for the financial inclusion of the informal sector
• Evolution of teams' working conditions
About I&P Acceleration Technologies
Launched in December 2019 with the support of the AFD through the Digital Africa initiative, I&P Acceleration Technologies is a €2.5 million program aiming to finance and support around 15 digital start-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the West Africa, Central Africa, and Madagascar zones.
About Comoé Capital
Comoé Capital is the first impact investment fund dedicated to financing and supporting Ivorian SMEs and start-ups.
Headed by Issa Sidibé, Comoé Capital is the fifth African fund sponsored by Investisseurs & Partenaires as part of the I&P Development 2 fund. Up to date, the network of funds includes a fund in Niger (Sinergi Niger), Burkina Faso (Sinergi Burkina), Senegal (Teranga Capital), and Madagascar (Miarakap).
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 Services.
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 drivers.
Teliman is the very first on-demand motorcycle-taxi service in Bamako, Mali.
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.
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.
Jiro-Ve is a pioneering company in rural electrification in Madagascar, launched in 2014.
Jiro-Ve has come up with an innovative, inclusive micro franchise model to provide affordable and healthy lighting for marginalized communities. Its business model allows the company to rent out a rechargeable LED light for a price that is cheaper than candles or kerosene. For 250 Ariary per day (≈ 0,06 €) people get a fully charged light delivered to their doorstep, both incities and remote rural areas of Madagascar.
Jiro-Ve hires local entrepreneurs and uses existing networks, supporting and developing entrepreneurship.
Jiro Ve is managed by Rik Stamhuis, an entrepreneur of Dutch origin located in Madagascar since 2012. He holds 48% of the company's capital.
Rik is a driven and energetic leader with years of experience working for social enterprises. Before founding Jiro-Ve, Rik worked in Kenya trying to find innovative ways of distributing renewable energy.
Thanks to funding from the program I&P Acceleration Technologies, Jiro-Ve plans to expand its activity, initially in Madagascar by distributing the new kits in larger quantities and targeting more regions.
The company aims to extend its offer to other regions of Africa later on.
⇒ Jiro-Ve aims to eliminate poverty by helping local entrepreneurs to have a better income.
⇒ Jiro-Ve's model allows the most disadvantaged consumers to access a source of energy that is less polluting, less dangerous and less expensive than petroleum lamps.
⇒ According to the studies carried out by the company, each lamp used would avoid the emission of 0.37 tons of CO2 per year.
⇒ This energy source also has a positive impact on the health and well-being of users, by reducing the toxic fumes emitted by the candles and kerosene lamps that most target customers currently use.
About I&P Acceleration Technologies
Launched in 2019 with the support of the French Development Agency through its iniative Digital Africa, I&P Acceleration Technologies is a €2.5 million program that aims to finance and support some fifteen digital startups in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on Western Africa, Central Africa and Madagascar. Click here to read more →
About Miarakap
Miarakap is the first impact fund dedicated to the financing and support SMEs and start-ups in Madagascar. Managed by Emmanuel Cotsoyannis, Miarakap is the fourth African fund sponsored by Investisseurs & Partenaires as part of its program I&P Development 2. The network currently includes impact funds specialized in SME-financing in Niger (Sinergi Niger), Burkina Faso (Sinergi Burkina), in Senegal (Teranga Capital) and Côte d'Ivoire (Comoé Capital). Click here to visit Miarakap's website →
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