Lionstech aims to select innovative Senegalese companies with high potential to support their acceleration and connect them more easily to investors and strategic partners.
Local and international investors are increasingly placing their trust in young African entrepreneurs. From January to May 2022, start-ups on the black continent raised a record total of $2.7 billion in funding, compared to a total of about $1.2 billion over the same period in 2021. This represents a growth of more than 100 percent in the volume of funding recorded since the beginning of the year.
This financial windfall is unevenly distributed, however. English-speaking start-ups are getting the lion’s share of the funding at the expense of French-speaking start-ups. With this in mind, the General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth (DER/FJ), in partnership with the French Embassy and other players in the digital ecosystem, has officially launched the Lionstech Invest community.
The community aims to select innovative Senegalese companies with high potential within the ecosystem to support their acceleration and connect them more easily to investors and strategic partners.
The Lionstech Invest community will be based on 4 main pillars. The first is a two-million-euro fund supported by the DER/FJ and the French Embassy in Senegal, in addition to co-investment opportunities, for direct financing to innovative start-ups/SMEs with high growth and impact potential.
The second pillar concerns acceleration programs and expert resources offered by the partners to accompany the rise of the ecosystem, particularly on the subject of investment.
Bpifrance’s Euroquity digital platform and its customized services are the third pillar of this project. It aims to facilitate connections between start-ups and ecosystems in Europe and Africa, particularly with local and international investors.
The fourth and last pillar will consist of premium events in Senegal and Lionstech Invest delegations abroad to highlight the nuggets of the ecosystem, network, get informed and stay on top of trends.
ARD/te/fss/abj/APA