The French government is backing early-stage African startups who speak the same language.
Via the Digital Africa initiative, Francophone African companies can get up to 50,000 euros in equity funding. The money is made up of 20,000 euros in funding followed by a 30,000 euros SAFE investment.
Important why? Seed financing is the crucial first step for all starts-ups and once family and friends’ pockets have been exhausted, external backers are crucial.
The money is made available through Fuzé and eventually looks to target all those companies which operate in French in Africa. Currently, only companies in the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia can qualify. They also must be tech companies, less than 18 months old and have a co-founder who’s a citizen of one of the qualifying countries.
Impactful, or drop in the ocean? African is where it’s happening at the moment and this is a great initiative which was launched in 2018 by French President Emmanuel Macron. Knowing French bureaucracy though and its ability to kill anything stone dead through paperwork and conditions, it would be interesting to see who’s got any dosh and how they’ve done. Please let us know. 👌
And for those interesting in applying, here’s the link: https://fuze.digital-africa.co/