The clinic PROCRÉA, specialized in reproductive health, began its activities in 2008. Based in Abidjan, it is now the leader in Côte d'Ivoire for medically assisted reproduction. PROCREA is the latest investment of the fund I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 2 (IPAE 2), launched in December 2017.
The fund I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 2, launched in December 2017 with a first closing at €50 million, made its first investments. Operating in various sectors of activity, the first companies of IPAE 2 portfolio share a common feature: the choice to develop their activities, from the outset, in several African countries. Two of them also share a strong technological component.
Launched in 2014, The African Management Institute (AMI) provides formalized training to empower managers and entrepreneurs.
AMI has developed over 45 practical business modules – including over 2,000 tools – with Africa’s leading business schools and global experts on adult learning. AMI’s training strategy and programs are based on a blended offer of both online material and in-person workshops with experts in their field.
Through its programmes, AMI aims to reach 20,000 people in 11 African countries.
AMI was co-founded by Jonathan Cook and Rebecca Harrison.
Jonathan Cook is the current Chairman of AMI. He has over 25 year-experience in management education, facilitation, coaching and consulting. Prior to founding AMI, Jonathan spent almost 10 years at GIBS, one of Africa’s leading Business Schools, where he served at various times as a senior lecturer, the Director of Executive Education, Academic Director, Executive Director and finally Director of the Business School until December 2013.
Before that, he spent 14 years as a faculty member at Wits Business School, where he founded the Management Development Unit and later became Director of Academic Programmes. He also spent 10 years with the National Institute for Personnel Research in Johannesburg. Jonathan continues to teach part time at GIBS in the areas of leadership and personal development, and is chief consultant of Thornhill Associates, where he advises companies in developing and implementing leadership development processes using customised 360-degree questionnaires.
Rebecca Harrison is the current CEO of AMI and has led the team since inception. Previously, Rebecca spent 9 years as a foreign correspondent and manager for Reuters News Agency, where she led business coverage in Africa and reported on politics, markets and development from 13 countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Rebecca completed her MBA in Entrepreneurship at South Africa’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, where she was awarded a Kellogg Foundation grant to conduct research into innovation in low-income markets. She is passionate about democratising skills development and supporting entrepreneurship in Africa through practical and affordable learning tools.
I&P committed alongside with AMI to:
• Help AMI further its reach in existing and new markets
• Bringing quality education to middle management of African companies
• Delivering employability training programs and formation to entrepreneurship to the youth, women and a larger number of small-scale entrepreneurs
AFRIBON, launched in 2012, is specialized in the creation and marketing of food flavours. The group has five production sites in total: four in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania) and one in Cameroon.
AFRIBON is currently the only company to produce locally and offer a tailor-made service to its customers, including notably manufacturers of beverages, biscuits and dairy products.
AFRIBON was created and is managed by two entrepreneurs :
Julien GIUGE is the co-founder and Managing Director of AFRIBON. He graduated from ESSEC and worked for nine years in China, where he was for three years the manager of the Chinese subsidiary of the AROMATECH Group, a French group specialising in the production of flavours and fragrances.
Anne MERIENNE is the co-founder and Director of the Kenyan sector. A graduate of ESCP, she has worked in China and the United Arab Emirates for the Beaumanoir group and the Accor group on management control and business development positions.
Based in Kenya, Anne and Julien have lived in several African countries over the past five years (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda).
I&P is committed alongside Afribon to :
• Develop the activities of the group in the current countries of operation
• Finance a new production line
• Strengthen the group's structure on cross-cutting activities
• Support the group's development in new countries
• Creation of many skilled jobs
• Creating opportunities for young teams composed mainly of women
• A service that reduces a major bottleneck in the food industry
• Develop the skills of local teams
• Substitution to imports
AGROSERV INDUSTRIE is an industrial unit processing maize into gritz and flour. Based in the industrial zone of Kossodo (Ouagadougou), the unit is equipped with two automatic production lines with a production capacity of 50 tons per day each.
The expertise developed by the promoter since the creation of the company in 2008 has allowed to him to conquer a significant portion of the national market.
In order to optimize the supply chain, AGROSERV INDUSTRIE decided to organize and support a network of small producers.
The entrepreneur
M. Siaka SANON holds a degree in IT Management. After graduating, he integrated the family business called EKSF (Establishment SANON Karidia et Fils), specialized in the collect and marking of cereals on local and international markets. This experience enabled him to get a full understanding of the maize supply chain. He managed the company for ten years and let its evolution towards AgroServ Industry, launched as a SARL in 2008.
Read the interview of Siaka Sanon (2022)
Partnership with I&P and Sinergi Burkina
Partnership with I&P and OikoCredit (2022 - now)
In 2022, Oikocredit and I&P (through its fund IPAE), with the support of BIO and EDFI AgriFI, completed the investment of €12.2 million in AgroServ Industrie.
This funding will allow Agroserv Industrie:
⇒ To build a new production unit in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, which will increase Agroserv's processing capacity to 160 tons per day.
⇒ Agroserv also plans to diversify into higher value-added products, including high-energy flour, pre-cooked cornmeal and soy protein, which will be sold to households, the government for school canteens and the World Food Program.
⇒ Smallholder farmers supplying Agroserv are also expected to increase to 12,000 (from 6,000 today) through closer collaboration with local cooperatives, increased direct sourcing, and higher yields, thanks to technical assistance provided by I&P.
Read more about this new investment
Partnership with Sinergi Burkina (2017-2022)
AgroServ Industrie is the second investment of Sinergi Burkina, an impact fund sponsored by I&P and dedicated to small companies in Burkina Faso.
The collaboration between Agroserv Industrie and Sinergi Burkina had considerable impacts on the local economic fabric. It has notably allowed the strengthening of a network of some 6.000 small maize producers and the employees jobs' formalization.
AgroServ Industrie is the first exit of Sinergi Burkina, after 5 years of successful collaboration.
In 2020, AgroServ also benefitted from financial support and technical assistance within the framework of the I&P Acceleration in the Sahel program, in partnership with the European Union. To cope with the unprecedented situation of covid-19, some fifteen companies benefit from technical and financial support to maintain their activities and overcome the crisis.
Main Impacts
• Structuring a network of more than 6,000 small maize producers
• Import substitution and sale of essential goods at affordable price
• Wages well above the legal minimum in Burkina Faso
About I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 2 (IPAE 2)
IPAE 2 is an impact fund promoting the emergence of a new generation of responsible African entrepreneurs. IPAE 2 invests in equity and quasi-equity as a minority shareholder in startups and businesses located in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, for amounts comprised between €300,000 and €5 million.
About Sinergi Burkina
Created in 2014, Sinergi Burkina is the first impact investment fund dedicated to financing and supporting SMEs and start-ups in Burkina Faso. Headed by Job Zongo, Sinergi Burkina is the second investment fund sponsored by Investisseurs & Partenaires as part of the I&P Développement 2 fund. The fund network currently includes a fund in Niger (Sinergi Niger), Côte d'Ivoire (Comoé Capital), Senegal (Teranga Capital) and Madagascar (Miarakap). → To learn more about Sinergi Burkina
On the occasion of celebrating fifteen years of investment, Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), the impact investing group dedicated to Small and Medium Enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa, has announced the first closing of IPAE 2, a new impact fund combining performance and impact.
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
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
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