IPAE 1

Founded in Gabon in 2012 by Folly Koussawo with the support of Seydou Béyé, Trianon Homes is a real estate development and construction company with three core businesses: third-party construction, turnkey project design and construction, and real estate development.

From the outset, Trianon Homes took the gamble of positioning itself as the missing link in Gabon's construction industry: a company combining the agility of a small-scale structure with the application of a structured group. Trianon quickly demonstrated the viability of its model, winning over public and private clientele.

After a decade of activity and successful experience in real estate development in Gabon, Trianon is now stepping up its real estate development operations aimed at middle-class families in several African countries: Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Benin. The company's ambition is to respond to the problem of access to property ownership, which is becoming increasingly difficult in African cities, where land prices have risen sharply in recent decades as a result of galloping urbanization.

Today, Trianon has 50 employees, over 200 local subcontractors, 85 completed projects and plans to deliver hundreds of new homes every year for real estate development projects.

The entrepreneur

Folly Koussawo is a Franco-Gabonese entrepreneur in his forties, and has been running the company since its creation in 2012. He graduated from the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce IPAG in Nice, and holds a DESS in real estate from the Sorbonne (Paris). After graduating, he began his career as an auditor with Grant Thornton in France, before joining Kaufman & Broad (K&B), one of France's leading property development groups, for a period of 7 years.

Since June 2023, Folly Koussawo has also been President of the Club Africain des Entrepreneurs, a pan-African organization created in 2016 and bringing together women and men invested in the entrepreneurial adventure and united by a shared commitment to sustainable and responsible development in Africa. 

Words from the new president of the Club Africain des Entrepreneurs

Partnership with I&P

The first partnership between Trianon and I&P dates back to 2014, with initial financing provided through the I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 1 (IPAE1) fund, which enabled the company to structure itself and increase its production capacity (prefabrication unit, wood and metal joinery, equipment fleet).  

This new financing, completed in 2023, will help Trianon take another step forward in the development of its activities, notably real estate development in Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire.

Expected impact

• Access to home ownership and sustainable, quality housing for middle-class African families;  
• Creation of formal jobs;  
• Raising local construction standards.

ITG Store is an IT services company offering service and infrastructure integration. The company creates a strong local added value through management information systems, data storage and other services. Relying on a local team of expert engineers, ITG has earned the trust of major clients operating in the region.

Though the African SI market is booming, it still remains overwhelmed by foreign companies. ITG Store has easily overcome this strong competition thanks to same-level quality services at lowest prices. The company creates a strong local added value through SI management, data storage and other services. Its CEOs, computer engineers Gabriel Fopa and Eric Heslot relies on a young team they have trained within the company.

ITG is now the exclusive African computing partner of Bolloré, one of the most powerful financial and industrial French conglomerates.

THE ENTREPRENEURS

Gabriel Fopa and Eric Heslot were both computing engineers at the SSI company SILICOMP. In 2006, they decided to create their own SSII in Douala. The entrepreneurs financed all the equipment and software with their own capital. Then, they trained a team of engineers and technicians recruited locally. Since 2007, the company won a great number of bids and tenders, constituting a thick portfolio of big firms.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P is committed alongside ITG Store to:

• To accompany the strong growth of its activities, particularly with regard to internal infrastructures and working environment

• To bring financings addressed to the creation of a test and training center to fill the structural lack of qualified local human resources in this sector. 

• Construction of green building for the new headquarters and data center

• Ensure basic healthcare cover for employees

KEY IMPACTS

• Number of created jobs: 73, including 11 women and a large majority of high-skilled employees

• Development and promotion of local skills in the computing field

• Recruitment policy toward young degreed and continuous training of employees.

• Company governance structuration

Sofamac is engaged in the production of clay construction, such as tiles and clay bricks, intended for local use.

Clay production, which was quite common until the end of the 1970s, now offers a real market opportunity. The products show great thermic and time resistance and match an unsatisfied local demand for construction and equipment.

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Moussa Dia is a civil engineer entrepreneur who ran for more than twenty years an engineering and metallic construction business (sheds, water towers…) in Saint-Louis, Northern Senegal. His passion for terracotta and the opportunity of the market led him to found SOFAMAC a small terracotta handcrafted production unit.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P committed alongside with Sofamac

• To undertake a market study for terracotta bricks

• To carry out a feasibility study for the project

KEY IMPACTS

• Production of a construction material more adapted to local demand with a better energetic balance and entirely recyclable items

• Enhance local production, in substitution to foreign imports

• Lower consumer prices

Delta Irrigation sells and installs irrigation equipment and provides technical assistance to its clients in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

The company serves a wide landscape of customers: small traditional farmers eager for technical assistance, intermediate operators who do not have sufficient technical service and major national projects and developers.

THE ENTREPRENEURS

Jean Pierre Chapeaux graduated as an agronomist, specializing in tropical regions. He began his career as a researcher in Belgium, then in Burundi. He led a family business in Belgium and a cardboard and packaging company in Burundi before becoming Operating Director in two of the largest farms in Senegal. He can be considered as the initiator of drip irrigation in the Senegal River valley. He created Delta Irrigation in 2003.

Bruno Demulder, geographer, led rural development projects in Senegal before taking the operational management of Delta Irrigation in 2010. 

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P committed alongside Delta:

• To finance and to make formal the company’s growth strategy in Senegal and Ivory Coast

• To set up a functional IGS within the company

KEY IMPACTS

• Development of local agricultural production through the use of drip irrigation systems

• Streamlined and efficient use of water

• Participation in food security

• Implementation of health insurance for employees

• Development of the missing governance tools

Conergies designs, engineers, installs and provides maintenance for air conditioning and industrial cooling systems.

The group gathers two subsidiaries in Mali (RICA Services) and in Côte d'Ivoire (ARIC). Being comfortably settled in Mali, the group plans on a large-scaled deployment in Côte d'Ivoire where the construction market remains globally depressed. Around 80% of Abidjan towers need restoration and virtually no investment were made in the past 15 years within the sector. The local offer needs a structuration force which RICA is able to embody.

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Mamadou Sanankoua graduated in Mechanics Engineering from Polytechnique Montreal and in International Project Management from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce of Paris. His academic path thus combines technical and financial skills with business engineering experiences earned within great industrial firms (Schneider Electrics, Daikin Europe). He decided to take the lead in the family business then ran by his father in 2001 to pursue its leadership over the sub-region alongside with his brothers and a friend.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P has committed alongside with Conergies:

• To bring technical assistance resources needed to renew the Management Information System

• To support through marketing assistance and guide the company during its rebranding process

• To build up the governance

KEY IMPACTS

• A dozen jobs created in the new Ivorian subsidiary

• Awareness and expertise brought over efficient energy

• Health and security trainings for the employees

Oxus DRC is a Greenfield microfinance institution initiated by ACTED and financed by OXUS Holding, Proparco and I&P. The IMF started its activities in September 2012 after having received the approval of the Central Bank of Congo in May 2012. 

OXUS DR Congo was launched in the province of Kinshasa and has now three branches: two in the capital city and one in Kikwit. OXUS DRC counts on extending quickly towards zones underserved in range of financial services. By 2018, Oxus DRC plans to have set up a network of about fifteen branches distributed on various regions of the country. It will provide to its clients a diversified range of credit products aiming at the small groups of merchants and the small and medium-sized individual companies. In the short term, Oxus DRC will also propose a range of products from savings to international money transfer.

The Oxus Group was created by ACTED in 2005 with the aim to fight poverty through the provision of microfinance services to the working poor. The group is committed to protecting and improving the lives of its clients while achieving solid financial results. Oxus MFIs offer adapted and socially oriented financial services to populations who are often excluded from the traditional banking system. Settled in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan and DRC, Oxus has disbursed nearly 187,000 loans amounting to US$ 183 million.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

• I&P chairs OXUS’ Audit Committee and Social Performance Committee

• Technical assistance support, notably regarding the management of their social performance

KEY IMPACTS

• Access granted for the poorest to financial services

• Fight against poverty

Pharmivoire Nouvelle is an Ivorian lab processing medical intravenous solutions. Pharmivoire was created when Copharminvest Holding bought the industrial lab PHARMIVOIRE in 1999. It is for now the only lab to locally produce and sell soft-packed intravenous solutions in French-Speaking West Africa. The company aims at becoming a leader on the West African Economic and Monetary Union, a market in real demand for medical goods while the sub-regional market imports 90% of this type of equipment.

COPHARMINVEST HOLDING was created in 1993 by the Ivorian Order of Pharmacists in order to comply with practitioners needs and set up economic tools within their sector by filling local industry needs as opportunities arise. This council gathers more than 100 private pharmacists.

THE ENTREPRENEURS

Dr. Elizabeth Kacou is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pharmivoire. Dr. Kacou is an officine-managing pharmacist with a dual profile  enhanced  by several management trainings (HEC Paris, HEC Executive Ivory Coast). 

The management of the company is held by Peter Aouely, the first non-pharmacist manager of the company with a strong entrepreneur background and a solid sense of business he acquired during his study at the Business School of Abidjan (ESCA).

PARTNESHIP WITH I&P

I&P is committed alongside with Pharmivoire:

• To finance a new type of equipment that will produce more profitable packs

• To set up employee profit-sharing plans with a bonus system

KEY IMPACTS

• Imports reduction on the intravenous solutions market

• Strong local added value

• Highly-qualified jobs

• Structured local pharmaceutic sector

Bakou Logistics is a freight-by-lorry company settled in Burkina-Faso. Several dozens of trucks freighted by Bakou convey cotton, oil and gas between Burkina-Faso and the Guinea Gulf. The company beats a fierce local competition thanks to its high security and probity standards lately rewarded by the Best Transporter Award from Total Burkina.

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Mamadou Traoré’s father also worked in the cargo industry. After he graduated in Finance from HEC Belgium, Mamadou worked for Alstom from 2001 to 2006 as a Commercial Manager in Liège. He then decided to head back to his native country and to start his own business inspired by his family inheritance. Bakou Logistics’ success owns a lot to his father’s experience but Mamadou Traoré quickly took the lead and bred a brand new spirit within the profession

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P committed alongside with Bakou Logistics

• To undertake technical missions in order to improve the GIS

• To bring the capital needed in the fleet expansion

• To enhance financial and auditing offices in the company

KEY IMPACTS

• 35 jobs created including 30 truck drivers with increased social conditions

• Incentives leading to the drivers empowerment through the purchase of their own trucks

• Emergence of a freight local leader, independent from international firms

• Improvement of local standards in terms of environment, social and governance themes

NOVAGO (formerly known as "VRS") is a company with 20 years' experience in the field of full service long-term vehicle rental.

Created in 2004 by two French entrepreneurs, Pierrick Morier and Thomas Crand, NOVAGO has grown to become a key player in the long-term vehicle rental and fleet management sector in West Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Ghana), with a fleet of around 1,000 vehicles in 2023.

The company provides rental services for a wide range of clients, from professionals/SMEs to some of the larget international corporates based in West Africa. NOVAGO's activities include fleet management, vehicle maintenance and servicing, assistance and repairs, driver services and insurance.

NOVAGO plans to expand its activities in Benin and Togo.

The entrepreneurs

The management team consists of Jérôme de Villard, Chief Executive Officer of NOVAGO Africa, and Manuella Sako, Chief Financial Officer of NOVAGO Africa, Romain Pinto, Chief Executive Officer of NOVAGO Ghana, Mohamed Ly (NOVAGO Senegal) and Ramatoulaye Balde (NOVAGO Côte d'Ivoire).

The founders of the company, Pierrick Morier and Thomas Crand, are both members of the Board of Directors.

Partnership with I&P

I&P invested in the company in 2014 through its fund I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs, and reinvested with the fund IPAE 2.

Support by IPAE 1 (2014-2022)

⇒ The fleet managed by NOVAGO has grown from 80 to 800 recent, fuel-efficient vehicles.

⇒ Originally based in Ghana, the company has expanded its activities in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal thanks to the support of IPAE 1.

⇒ I&P supported the implementation of a solid ESG plan for NOVAGO, symbolised by the launch of the first 100% electric vehicle in Côte d'Ivoire in 2023.

Ongoing projects (IPAE 2' investment)

In March 2023, NOVAGO completed a new round of financing with I&P (through IPAE 2) and Adiwale Partners. This new investment aims to :

⇒ Strengthen the company's business in its existing markets

⇒ Support NOVAGO's expansion into other West African countries

Key impacts

⇒ Creation of local standards within a nascent market

⇒ Development of a green cars offer

⇒ Pollution control policy (waste oil recycled) and implementation of a carbon offsetting strategy with the support of I&P and Ecosur Afrique

⇒ Improvement of employees’ social conditions thanks to a healthcare system

Read more

⇒ Company's website

Created in 2005, Carrières du Moungo (CDM) is a company located in Cameroon which has developed sand quarry activities for BTP construction.

The company rapidly developed to meet a growing need for high-quality construction in Cameroon. CDM currently operates on 3 sites and has diversified its activities (crushed gravel, ready-mix concrete...).

THE ENTREPRENEUR

André Ngalaho first worked within the sport community before investing in sand quarry and gravel pit. He created CDM with the financial support from his friends.

His wife Laure Djoukam started to work full-time in the company in 2009. She manages day-to-day operations while M. Ngalaho is responsible for the business development

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P is committed alongside CDM to:

• Renew the company’s equipment and improve its profitability

• Bring Technical assistance to reinforce the financial, technical and operational management of CDM and to set up an social and environmental plan 

IMPACTS

• 70 full time employees, out of which more than 30 high-skilled and medium skilled jobs

• Salary is twice higher than other extraction companies

• CDM satisfies a strong local demand and its production subsidies itself to importations

• A large part of CDM’s output is produced and consumed locally

• All the suppliers of the company are local