Propaco invests $5 million to support growth of African startups
In order to support the digital transformation of the African continent, Proparco has taken a $ 5 million stake in TLCOM TIDE AFRICA FUND, a fund that will finance young innovative companies in sub-Saharan Africa.
Thanks to new technologies, these start-ups will improve people's access to essential services.
If the penetration rate of SIM cards on the African continent is the only one today that is closer to that of Western Europe, 70 per cent versus. 83 per cent, access to services rates The essentials are still very far behind: the rates of electrification, access to health or banking do not exceed 31 per cent in Africa while they amount to more than 90 per cent in Western Europe.
With more than 600 million smartphone users expected in Africa by 2020, the mobile phone is a key development tool that will unlock the access of African people to essential goods and services, energy, health, education, transportation and consumer goods.
TIDE Africa Fund, Technology and Innovation for Developing Economies, was created to support the development of young start-ups in sub-Saharan Africa whose economic model, based on the exploitation of a digital or digital technology, meets to a need of the local market little or not served.
These companies will thus make it possible to improve, through new technologies, access to essential goods and services in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
With an investment of $ 5 million, Proparco's investment is part of the first round of financing worth nearly $ 40 million, alongside the EIB and the AfDB.
It will enable the TIDE Africa fund to meet the financing needs of young African start-ups, as venture capital for these companies is still very little developed in Africa.
With strong experience in supporting innovative start-ups and a deep knowledge of the start-up ecosystem in Africa, the TLcom team will invest in some fifteen companies under the age of five, having crossed prototyping and placing on the market, to finance growth and scaling up.