The Senegalese General Delegation for the Acceleration of Entrepreneurship for Women and Young People (DER), has signed a partnership with Germany’s premier African Start-ups investor, GreenTec Capital Partners with a purpose to set up an foundation for the first regional Venture Building Center in Africa to tackle investment challenges by providing investment tickets between € 10,000 and € 500,000 for entrepreneurs at the cusp of their growth stages.
The needs of Start-ups, MSMEs and SMEs in Africa today revolve around a balanced combination of financing and operational support. The entrepreneurial boom and the entrepreneurial spirit on the African continent are primarily supported by the growth of new ecosystem stakeholders such as incubators, hubs, and accelerators.
The agreement was signed by the Minister Delegate for Entrepreneurship, Papa Amadou Sarr, and the CEO and co-founder of the German investment company, GreenTec Capital Partners, Erick Yong, joining the mutual ambitions of the two entities to the benefit of young Senegalese entrepreneurs by:
- Providing financing of the digital sector
- Strengthening the operational capacities of Start-ups
- Setting up a common infrastructure to enable startups to develop sustainably.
GreenTec Capital Partners Signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the Senegalese General Delegation for the Acceleration of Entrepreneurship for Women and Young People, DER
The joint initiative will further enable entrepreneurs with high potential to get better access the support they need to grow. Accessing support in the form of personalized operational assistance will create value for entrepreneurs who have matured past the phase in which incubators and accelerators have added value. This will help to further improve the quality of Start-ups and improve their chances of success.
Through its innovation fund the DER has already invested in 44 Senegalese startups in 2018, with ticket sizes ranging from € 10,000 to € 100,000. In 2019, the DER aims to support more than 150 digital Startups and SMEs, by investing more than 10 million euros, while supporting an additional twenty Start-ups with the GreenTec Capital venture-building model.
The agreement also includes the establishment of the new GreenTec Capital regional office in Dakar to support and develop the operations of the largest investment structure in Germany for African start-ups in Francophone Africa. The local team will help raise the critical operational capabilities of companies to help make them more attractive for international investors.
