Rinchi
TechInAfrica – The World Bank Group’s XL Africa has launched a one-week bootcamp, L’Afrique Excelle in Mali. The tech startup accelerator invites 20 Francophone African tech startups to join the program that will take place from March 24th to March 30, 2019.
The bootcamp program, L’Afrique Excelle was inspired by the well-known XL Africa program to support entrepreneurship ecosystem in Anglophone and Francophone Africa, especially in some vulnerable countries like Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, the Democratic of Congo, and Mali.
The bootcamp program is aligned with other new ecosystem initiatives, both from public and private sectors. These new initiatives include the French Development Agency’s Digital Africa initiative and the Francophone Africa Investor Summit (FAIS).
The main focus of L’Afrique Excelle is startups in the area of financial technology (fintech), cleantech, data analytics and enterprise software, and transportations. These startups should have their products or services in the Francophone market(s), have strong revenues and the high potential for cross-border expansion.
During the one-week program, they will have opportunities to receive individual consultations, training, as well as peer-to-peer learning.
Among those twenty startups, ten of them will be selected to level up their skills at the France Residency in May this year. They will receive some mentoring and intensive training from Sophia Business Angels, coaching from experts at Deloitte’s and Google’s office, as well as get to meet potential investors at AfroBytes and VivaTech conferences held in Paris from May 15th to May 18th the same year. Furthermore, these startups will have an opportunity to secure early-stage fund around US$250,000 up to US$5 million.
Sebastian Molineus, Director Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group stated: “Similar to the XL Africa program, L’Afrique Excelle has attracted a number of growth-oriented digital start-ups from Francophone Africa. Many of them have already raised seed funding, totaling over $11 million, and are active in several African markets. This is a strong signal regarding the competitiveness of Francophone African start-ups and their contribution to Africa’s digital economies.”
