TECH AFRICA-TECH FRANCE, A LINK FOR GROWTH An entrepreneurial ecosystem for inventing the future, seizing opportunities together, transforming our continents
I. FRANCE
A GLOBAL HUB FOR ENTREPRENEURS «I’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs and I feel as though I’m seeing another Silicon Valley in France.» John Chambers, President of CISCO, USA
FRANCE, THE LAND OF CREATIVITY AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT France is the one country in Europe where the entrepreneurial revolution is at its strongest and yet has the least recognition. From connecting ecosystems to incubating projects and accelerating financing, the ecosystem for French start-ups is a rapidly growing, unexpected, and yet currently extremely vibrant hub for digital technology in Europe. France is one of the leading creators of companies in Europe, with 390,000 companies set up each year. More than 60% of young people in France currently want to become entrepreneurs. France has a central place on the bridge of new technologies.
FRANCE IS PICKING UP THE PACE! An investment leader in Europe in 2016
A determined public investment strategy
• Greatest progress in Europe in the last 5 years • Major French companies are getting involved in the
financing of start-ups: France is ahead of Germany (2nd) and the United States when it comes to collaborations between start-ups and major company groups, with 92% of its biggest companies involved in this kind of activity1 • 2.7 Bln.€ raised for start-up/capital risk in 2016 - ahead
of Germany • A larger number of places financed in start-ups in
Europe • A community of business angels and venture capitalists 2
that is second to none
• The Public Investment Bank
(Bpifrance): 1.9 Bln.€
for innovation • The activity of Bpifrance accounts for 21.9% of all
the fundraising dedicated to innovation carried out between 2012 and 2016, a healthy amount3 • Bpifrance: the most active sovereign wealth fund in
the world in the tech sector4 • 5 Bln.€ in research tax credit to finance R&D • Number 1 country in terms of welcoming
industrial investment made in Europe • 2nd place in terms of the number of operations
conducted in the European capital risk ecosystem
1. «How do the World’s Biggest Companies Deal with the Startup Revolution», Arnaud Bonzom, février 2016 2. France Angels: a network of 10,000 federated BA. 42,7 million euros invested in 2016 and 132 million euros with co-investors for a x3 lever effect 3. Bpifrance, activity report 2016 4. CB Insights, 17 January 2017
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AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
Unprecedented acceleration of the ecosystem • Number 1 incubator in the world: Station F with
3000 projects
Creativity that is enriched when combined with French talent, the French touch • Fashion, graphic arts and plastic arts
• Number 1 programming school in Europe,
recognized world leader
• Design, architecture, luxury goods, music... • The quality of products and services, excellence in
• 233 incubators and 51 accelerators
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• A fully deployed French Tech network with funds of
200 M€ between now and 2020
A powerful R&D system and an impressive capacity for innovation • Paris is in the top ten in the world in the Top
TechCities rankings
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• 2nd most represented nation in the CES of Las
Vegas 2016 • In the top rank of top-performing tech companies
in the EMEA zone, with 86 companies making it into the Technology Fast 500 (Deloitte)
operations…
Expertise in all the tech revolutions currently taking place • AI • Machine learning • Augmented reality • 3D printing • Big data • Nanotechnologies • Blockchains
FRANCE, A TRULY CONNECTED EUROPEAN CROSSROADS! A unique geographical location • A position right at the heart of Europe, enabling us
to reach 500 million European consumers in less than 48 hours • A gateway to the EMEA markets
• High-performance broadband and ultra-broadband
networks
Un capital humain central • 100 000 engineers trained every year • 70 000 postgraduates a year (41% of whom are
A first-rate infrastructure network • The number 1 road network in Europe, the 2nd largest
airport in Europe for freight transport, the number 1 business airport in Europe
foreign) • 7th best figures in the world for hourly productivity
of the workforce, ahead of Germany and the UK
FRANCE IS OPEN FOR INVESTMENT! An increasing degree of openness to African investment • 1
Franco-African investment fund dedicated to crossed investment st
• Africinvest/ Bpifrance/AFD Group • over 50% of African acquisitions operations
Inspired by innovations launched in Africa • Convergence of mobile/banking. Orange is taking
inspiration from the African models in France and numerous French groups are re-importing African innovation 12
5. Keyrus, February 2017 6. CB Insights, ‘The Next Silicon Valley’
AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
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II. AFRICA
THE CONTINENT OF THE TECH AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP REVOLUTION « We are giving so as to achieve autonomy and break the cycle of dependency. Entrepreneurship is the only lever that can bring independence and durability.» Tony Elumelu, President of UBA, Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Nigeria
TECH-INNOVATION: LEARNING FROM AFRICA Africa currently has the youngest population in the world. In 2030, there will be 321 million people in the 15-24 yr-old age group in Africa and the continent will truly belong to the Millennials. Given the current growth in the rates of penetration of mobile internet, the issue of connectivity will soon be a thing of the past. Digital technology currently accounts for 5% of the African countries’ GDP, and this figure should rise to 8% by 2020. The reduction in the cost of mobile equipment will accelerate this trend greatly in the years to come.
AFRICA, A CONTINENT AT THE HEART OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES The powerful forces in Africa that embody the 640%, and there has also been a marked improvement continent’s emergence rely on entrepreneurship in the quality of these start-ups. as the engine of development. There is no doubt that FinTech, particularly ‘Mobile Whilst it is hard to state with any certainty just how Money’, is a field in which the continent is a world many start-ups come into being each day on a continent leader. What’s more, in terms of general mobile usage: consisting of 54 countries, the trend is undoubtedly one in March 2017, the central bank of Kenya launched a of rapid growth. Over the last 4 years, the situation has bond issue via mobile. Paying the electricity bills using progressed significantly. On the platform VC4Africa, your mobile has become standard practice in numerous the number of start-ups seeking funds has risen by African countries.
AFRICA, WHERE SUCCESS STORIES ARE COMING THICK AND FAST The number of success stories is growing exponentially, as exemplified by M-Pesa, launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the first mobile telephone operator in Kenya. This mobile phone payment service is used by more than 18 million Kenyans and accounts for approximately 25% of the country’s gross domestic product. M-Pesa has also been operating in Romania since March 2014! And it
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is keen to continue its expansion into Eastern Europe. M-KOPA (a solar pay as you go system), Jumia (e-Commerce) and AfriMarket (a cash to goods money transfer service) are further examples of success stories.
AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
In Africa, Orange became a bank with ‘Orange Money’ before deciding to replicate the same concept in Europe. Africa is the continent of digital transformation and is currently exporting its digital trends all over the world.
The Kenyan start-up Msurvey, which conducts surveys in real time via mobile, has signed a major partnership deal with Safari Com aimed at ‘mapping’ consumer behaviour. Its priority is to develop its business in the Philippines.
AFRICA: COUNTRIES THAT STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD African tech companies are making a name for > Nigeria: Lagos is the continent’s gateway to the digital economy. A large number of start-ups have themselves and combining tech with innovation, sprung up in Nigeria, including Jumia and IrokoTV, particularly: Africa’s answer to Netflix; > Kenya: 11 hubs; Kenya is the country with the most support structures for digital innovation in Africa. > Ghana: the MEST Incubator (attached to the Meltwater Construction of the Konza Technology City, with the Entrepreneurial School of Technology), is one of the aim of creating 200,000 jobs. There are almost 1,500 most influential incubators in the African tech scene. start-ups in Kenya. 70% of all payments in Kenya are Ghana has several hundred digital start-ups; made digitally; > Egypt: Egypt’s dynamic tech scene, located mainly in Cairo, has approximately 400 start-ups, a dozen > Rwanda: this nation of 12 million people is playing premises and the presence and funds of VC. a pioneering role in the use of digital technologies as a national development strategy. Drones have Others affirm an exceptional and sustained dynamism: been used there to help connect with isolated people Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, South Africa... in mountainous regions, and are also involved in the construction of the country’s next generation of business highways7;
Africa is the land where anything is possible • A global continent (from Algiers to the Cape, from
Dakar to Mogadishu), its diversity is its greatest strength • A global economic engine, a land of enormous
opportunities
What it already is • 52 cities with more than a million people • 60% of the world’s reserves of tillable land • a growth rate of 5% a year on average over the last
decade • over 70% mobile penetration rate
What it will be • 50% of the population will be living in urban areas
by 2030 • 1.1 billion Africans will be of working age in 2040 • 2 billion inhabitants in 2050 • By that time, Africa’s GDP will be the same as
China’s
Africa is • the youngest continent in the world (more than half
the population are under 25) • the continent of entrepreneurial dynamism • the continent of permanent innovation to tackle
the challenges on which it thrives
1 7. Andrieu, C. Le XXIe siècle s’invente en Afrique. Editions Atlande, 2017.
AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
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III. EUROPE-AFRICA
CREATING AND TRANSFORMING OURSELVES TOGETHER « Let us invest together so that we can find win-win solutions for our countries’ companies and young people.» Jacqueline Mugo, SGeneral Secretary of Business Africa, Director of the Federation of Kenyan Employers, Kenya
« Defining the future without being arrogant, not just going to Africa to do a one-off bit of business but for the long-term, building a win-win partnership together. We have a lot to learn from Africa.» Pierre Gattaz, President of MEDEF, France
SYNERGIES AND PARTNERSHIPS The African ecosystems in tech and innovation have seen a surge in development. A number of weaknesses can nonetheless be identified, in terms of the resources that incubators have for aiding start-ups effectively, and access to financing, described by 87% of start-ups as ‘very difficult’ and by 8% as ‘not easy’8. Despite their astonishing dynamism, these African ecosystems are thus allowing certain needs to arise: - support for ecosystems; - funding for start-up initiation and growth; - Strengthening and adapting of training and human resources; - roll-out of dedicated public policies. The French ecosystem provides an answer to these stakes. At the heart of Europe, Paris is a dynamic ‘hub’ which now promotes the coming together of African Tech and European Tech via 4 axes.
CONNECTING
STRUCTURING
The AGYP ecosystem, powered by MEDEF, is the leading network for organizing entrepreneurship events in Africa
France shares the 1st network of incubators to be supported in Africa
• over 250 events • over 50 member organisations
• Support for the development of innovative entrepreneurship
in Africa with the incubator Bond’Innov, the OIF, the IRD and the AFD • Orange incubators all over Africa
The MEDEF is the 1st employer organization to have created an index of national start-ups active in Africa 1 8. source : Tony Elumelu Foundation.
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AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
• NUMA incubators • 12 Jokkolabs hubs in 9 countries, including France
FINANCING
INNOVATING
France is one of the top 5 investors in Africa
Number 1 partner for science and training
• 10 Africa investment funds
• 25 schools and universities with offshoots in Africa
• 70 start-up funds in France
• 10,000 African students studying in France
• 2nd biggest bank network on the continent
• 450 schools/universities (Campus BEM/Kedge in Dakar,
Sup de Co Dakar, EM Lyon Campus de Casablanca, etc.)
• 3rd biggest investor
• Academic relations between France and Africa appear to be
Launch by the ADF and Bpifrance of the ‘Start-up Challenge Digital Africa’, an innovation competition promoting the development of digital startups in Africa
fairly healthy. Indeed, France is the number one country in terms of welcoming African students, with 26% of students from Africa who study abroad opting to come here. They also account for 43% of all the foreign students taught at French universities.
A NETWORK FOR ACCELERATING GROWTH WITH AFRICA Thanks to these strengths, the French Tech and Innovation networks, located as they are right at the heart of Europe, are picking up the pace, so as to provide even more concrete responses to what is stake, namely a stronger partnership with the African continent, via numerous activities: Coordinating all the major players in the ecosystem and promoting specific initiatives on the ground: a continuous chain of events in 2017 around a shared ambition • 6 and 7 June: launch of Active Growth and Youth Programs Europe, Brussels • 8 and 9 June: 2nd Afrobytes Conference, Paris • 29 and 30 August: Think Global, Be Smart, Act local - MEDEF’s Summer University, Jouy en Josas • October: African innovation at heart: StartupLions, Paris • Week of 20th November, Kenya
> 2nd Youth and Entrepreneurship Forum Africa > Launch of the first African Start Up Summit ‘Start with Africa’ • 27 and 28 November: EU Africa Business Forum, Abidjan
Provision and simplification of information, to provide better support for start-ups • Week of 20th November, Kenya
> Launch of the online platform containing all the information related to support for start-ups with the African continent and setting out what the participants in the tech-innovation ecosystem have to offer > Publication of the annual study ‘Stars in Africa’, featuring the best start-ups on the continent
AGYP - France : Hub européen Tech-Innovation de croissance avec l’Afrique
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DIGITAL DISRUPTION
LAB
A NETWORK FOR ACCELERATING GROWTH WITH AFRICA
P O W E R E D BY M E D E F
L'index des start-up françaises en Afrique
CONTACTS POWERED BY MEDEF
AGYP
Network Team contact@agyp.co www.agyp.co www.facebook.com/Agyp.co twitter.com/Agyp_co www.linkedin.com/company/Agyp
MEDEF
Léonard Cox Chief of staff to the President lcox@medef.fr www.medef.fr www.facebook.com/medef twitter.com/medef www.linkedin.com/company/medef