- il y a 2 jours
Start-Up Ecosystem Taking the Pulse in Africa
Catégorie
🤖
TechnologieTranscription
00:03Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
03:361.5 million
09:58You know, at the onset of COVID-19 on the continent, a lot of our women entrepreneurs rose to the
10:04challenge.
10:05And so many of them who were in fashion converted their warehouses into producing masks.
10:10A lot of them started to, who were in education, started to run campaigns going from village to village, community
10:17to community,
10:18enlightening their communities around the virus, around how to stay safe, around how to protect themselves and their loved ones.
10:25You know, we have women entrepreneurs in agriculture who are revolutionizing the space,
10:30who are now looking at how we can use drones to spread fertilizer,
10:35who are looking out to build new warehouses to decrease the number of fruits and vegetables that rot on the
10:41continent,
10:41who are now bringing technology to bring the farm to fork,
10:47who are, you know, using very creative means to transform agriculture and what we know it as on the continent.
10:52Another sector we have a lot of women in, obviously, is education.
10:56A lot of women are building new schools, and not just brick-and-mortar schools,
11:01but bringing schools to iPads, to computers, to phones everywhere,
11:04and educating millions of young Africans who otherwise would not have that access.
11:09You know, with our partnership with the European Union last year,
11:12we were able to fund an additional 2,500 women African entrepreneurs,
11:16and we were able to uplift around 100 of them who are ready in our program
11:21by giving them access to additional grants of 50,000 euros each.
11:25Now, let me tell you a good story.
11:27With the 50,000 euros one of our entrepreneurs received,
11:30she wants to start the Starbucks of Africa.
11:32But before that, in Lagos, she was importing all her cocoa.
11:36But now, with the 50,000 euro grant, she went to the farms in northern Nigeria,
11:41and she now has women farmers growing that cocoa for her.
11:45So now she's not only starting a business that's set to be the Starbucks for Africa,
11:49she's now empowering women farmers in northern Nigeria to send their children to school,
11:55to get better access to health care for their families, to protect their families,
11:59and, you know, empowering communities across Nigeria.
12:02So that's the type of, you know, value chain support that our entrepreneurs,
12:06especially the women, build.
12:08That's the kind of support they give, not just themselves and their families,
12:11but also to other women startups across the continent.
12:15We're very proud of our women entrepreneurs.
12:17You can be.
12:20And it's clearly a very virtuous cycle.
12:23And Ari, you're just going to take a second there,
12:25because we talked about, you know, the idea of,
12:29I was imagining farmers, men, if I'm honest,
12:31and you were saying that you had a lot of agriculture as well at your end.
12:34Is that a lot of women there too?
12:37Are we seeing a lot of startups in agriculture?
12:40Yeah.
12:41Are they women?
12:42Are there a lot of women in there?
12:43I think both women and men.
12:44And I think the challenge,
12:46so there's opportunities at the smallest scale,
12:49but the challenge, and we've not really been able to figure it out,
12:52although you're seeing verticals, again, within agritech take off,
12:56what Africa needs is to move from smallholder farming to large-scale farming.
13:00And that's the opportunity for tech.
13:03We've been very obsessed with smallholder farming.
13:05One, because it's political, you know, you can't say no more small farms.
13:12Two, it's just a legacy that we've had.
13:14Okay.
13:15But the opportunity for farming, where we're seeing,
13:18and then it tends to have both men and women,
13:20is around large-scale farming.
13:23So you're seeing companies, and then everything around that,
13:25whether it's coal storage, whether it's more efficient fertilizer,
13:29whether it's IoT.
13:31So you're seeing companies like Twiga, Victory Farms,
13:35Apollo Agriculture,
13:37sort of doing, mechanizing, organizing land,
13:42farming efficiently, increasing productivity.
13:45Agriculture is the biggest sector in the economy in Africa.
13:49But if you look at our productivity levels,
13:52they have not shifted since the 1970s.
13:55So big problem on productivity,
13:58big problem on imports, because we're inefficient.
14:01So if there's a war in Ukraine, we're struggling.
14:04We can't feed ourselves.
14:05Number three, the cost of food is incredibly expensive in Africa.
14:11In Nairobi, the average person spends 50% of their income on food.
14:17Most African countries have the highest top 10 inflation rates.
14:22In Africa, it's primarily food.
14:24So if you're spending 50% of your income on food,
14:28you can't think about ed tech, you can't think about health,
14:32you can't think about insurance,
14:33you can't think about consumer,
14:35and so we need to drop the cost of food
14:39and to make food production more efficient
14:41for all of the other sectors to thrive.
14:43But it's incredibly hard to do as a startup
14:46unless you're very narrowly focused.
14:48So we're seeing more companies focusing on productivity,
14:52but it really takes a long time.
14:54You have to be very patient.
14:55Mentoring must be key as well.
14:57And let me ask you, we talked about sectors
14:58in which people are creating a lot.
15:00Are there sectors where there are fewer businesses?
15:04I think I'll start.
15:06Maybe you can jump in.
15:07Because the consumer wallet is stretched,
15:10everyone thinks they can solve for B2C,
15:13and then they realize,
15:15we need to make money first.
15:17So you're seeing a lot more B2B plays,
15:20direct-to-consumer or business-to-consumer,
15:24fewer companies in a part of the world.
15:26But I think, for me, the exciting thing about Africa
15:30is that there's so many problems to be solved,
15:34and the market's so potentially big.
15:37I guess we don't see,
15:39we see fewer, like, how do you say,
15:43first world problem companies.
15:45A blender that's robotic,
15:48that can talk back to you and things like that.
15:51So almost every company is solving a real problem,
15:55but you see less in the B2C.
15:58Okay.
15:58And how about yourself?
15:59Yeah, what I was going to say is,
16:01I think years back,
16:02we didn't see the great interest in green
16:05that we see today on the continent.
16:07That's coming up.
16:07I think that a lot of African entrepreneurs
16:09are now very enlightened
16:11and are taking action
16:12against the climate crisis on the continent.
16:15You know, Africa, you know,
16:16contributes the least to global warming,
16:19but we bear the brunt
16:20of the most negative impact of the climate crisis.
16:23And our entrepreneurs across the continent
16:25are not just allowing that to happen to them,
16:28but they are leading the charge
16:29in fighting global change on the continent.
16:32So we have entrepreneurs
16:33who are in green, sustainable agriculture,
16:36who are in waste management,
16:38who are in recycling,
16:39who are in the labs coming up with solutions
16:42to combat the climate crisis.
16:44You know, African entrepreneurs
16:45are extremely responsible
16:46and extremely proactive,
16:48and they're not waiting for handouts.
16:50They're not waiting to be told what to do.
16:52They're looking in their communities
16:53and identifying the challenges
16:55and rising to stop those challenges
16:57and stem those challenges.
16:59At the foundation,
17:00our role is to support, encourage, mentor,
17:03and give them all the access
17:04and capital that they need.
17:06But then at the foundation,
17:07we also advocate very strongly
17:09to governments across the continent
17:10to prioritize these young African entrepreneurs.
17:14They are the ones producing jobs.
17:15They are the ones generating wealth.
17:17They are the ones creating prosperity.
17:19They are the ones driving the charge
17:21in terms of putting Africa on the global map.
17:23And so we must prioritize them
17:25across all stakeholder groups
17:27by creating the right enabling environment,
17:30the right policies,
17:31the right laws,
17:32the right taxes.
17:33You know, encourage their creativity,
17:35not stifle their creativity.
17:37Don't put these African entrepreneurs in a box.
17:39Don't dismiss them.
17:40Don't disregard them.
17:41Don't ignore them.
17:42They're the ones who will transform the continent.
17:45I believe that so strongly.
17:47And because of how much our entrepreneurs have done
17:50in just a short time,
17:51you know, we started our TF entrepreneurship program
17:54in 2015.
17:55And you will not believe these entrepreneurs
17:57have created over half a billion jobs
17:59on a continent.
18:01PWC, who is our consultant partner,
18:04expect that figure to double in the next two years.
18:07So these entrepreneurs are not waiting
18:09for their government to create jobs.
18:10They're the ones creating jobs.
18:12They're the ones fighting poverty
18:13across the continent.
18:15And it's our responsibility,
18:17not only as Africans,
18:18for all friends of Africa across the world
18:20to prioritize and support
18:23and empower these young African entrepreneurs.
18:26And you're representing and embodying
18:28that passion and empowerment so well.
18:29No, this is what I do,
18:30and I so strongly believe it.
18:32You believe it and you can feel it.
18:33Now, moving on,
18:34in the aftermath of the FTX crash,
18:35obviously the excitement for the metaverse
18:38has still been cooling,
18:39and now there's a surge of interest in AI.
18:42All right, what's your funding disposition right now?
18:44What are you excited to fund?
18:46What are you perhaps more cautious around currently?
18:49So I'll speak about our thesis
18:52and then about AI.
18:54So we look at Africa through the lens of markets
18:58and entrepreneurs through the lens of markets.
19:01So the first category we look at is infrastructure.
19:04Are you an entrepreneur who's solving a gap
19:07on the infrastructure side?
19:09So this could be payments,
19:10this could be companies
19:11that are providing dispatch services,
19:14and most often than not,
19:16unfortunately it's entrepreneurs
19:18who are solving a failure of public goods.
19:22Yeah?
19:22So ideally governments should be providing basic healthcare,
19:26they should be providing good education,
19:28and one day I hope that is resolved
19:31because nothing scales better than government,
19:34but until now,
19:36until that happens,
19:37entrepreneurs are closing that gap.
19:38so we back companies who are doing that.
19:42And another example is
19:44one of our portfolio companies,
19:45Shuttler's,
19:46is doing a shared mobility play in Nigeria
19:49because of the failure of public transport there.
19:52The second lens we look at markets
19:54is companies who are solving inefficiencies in markets.
19:57So there could be solutions,
19:59but either they're very manual,
20:01they're very disaggregated,
20:03they're very inefficient.
20:04So logistics companies and so on
20:06play in this space.
20:08And the third is market creators.
20:11So these are entrepreneurs
20:12who are looking at the shifting African consumer.
20:16I won't repeat all the statistics,
20:18you know,
20:19very young continent.
20:21Most of the labor force will come from us
20:25in the next, you know,
20:2630, 40 years.
20:27The biggest market,
20:29ETC.
20:30How we spend,
20:32you're seeing it already now,
20:33and I love Gen Z's.
20:34How we spend,
20:35how we consume,
20:37how we save,
20:38how we travel,
20:39how we take care of ourselves,
20:41what our ambitions are
20:43of this very young continent
20:44will shift.
20:45Whether you're earning a dollar a day,
20:47whether you're earning $5,000 a day.
20:50And a lot of this is because of the internet.
20:52This is a very aspirational continent.
20:55I can't expect,
20:56they're not waiting.
20:57They're not like us
20:58who would wait
20:59until we're 60
21:00to take our first vacation.
21:01and who saved
21:03to buy the first four.
21:04They want nice things now.
21:06They want an aspirational life now.
21:09They want to live differently.
21:10So we believe
21:11there'll be startups
21:12and entrepreneurs
21:13who are solving
21:15for that emerging consumer market.
21:17Where does AI fit into this?
21:19Apple has banned
21:20the use of AI internally.
21:23I totally agree.
21:24AI is not a fad.
21:26It's kind of talking about,
21:28if you say,
21:29oh, what's the future
21:30of microprocessors
21:32or future of mobile
21:34or future of a...
21:35This is the next step
21:38of technology.
21:39It's not a phase.
21:40It's not an AI-powered whatever.
21:43In fact,
21:44in the next two years,
21:45every SaaS business
21:47will be generative AI.
21:50So anyone who's pitching
21:52to me AI for this,
21:54not interested in,
21:55AI will be used
21:57either to enhance
21:58your productivity,
21:59to make your tools smarter,
22:01to hire less people,
22:03and so on.
22:04But it is technology.
22:05It's not a sector.
22:07It's not a phase.
22:09It's not a fad
22:11that will pass.
22:13It's the real thing.
22:14And so we don't look at AI
22:16as an opportunity.
22:19It's just the future
22:20of technology.
22:21It's a given.
22:22It's a given.
22:24So actually,
22:24startups are big now
22:25in terms of investor interest.
22:27And I'd like to know
22:27if you have a tech startup
22:29play at TF,
22:31are there any regions
22:31of interest
22:32in your program?
22:34Yeah, I'll answer that.
22:35But before then,
22:35I just want to say something
22:37in line with what
22:38Awe had just said.
22:40At the foundation,
22:42a lot of people
22:42come to us
22:43and ask us,
22:44instead of funding
22:45thousands of entrepreneurs
22:46every year,
22:47why don't you select
22:48about 50, 100 of them
22:50and then give them
22:51larger capital size
22:53instead of giving,
22:54you know,
22:54smaller amounts
22:55to so many people?
22:57And at the foundation,
22:58we respond to that
22:59in threefold.
23:00So the first thing is
23:01we're in the business
23:03of democratizing luck
23:05and creating opportunity.
23:06So we don't want to give
23:08the same startups
23:09who would otherwise
23:10get capital
23:11from VCs,
23:13from friends and families,
23:14from financial institutions.
23:15We want to support
23:16entrepreneurs
23:17that are marginalized,
23:18that are overlooked,
23:19that the markets don't want,
23:21that no one will give a chance.
23:22We want to be
23:24that conveyor of hope.
23:25We want to give them
23:26that luck
23:27and that hope
23:27that no one else,
23:28that no other institution
23:29would give them.
23:30So that's the first answer.
23:31The second answer is,
23:33you know,
23:33if we did go by
23:35how brilliant the idea was
23:37or how ready for market
23:39the idea was,
23:40then we'll be supporting
23:41entrepreneurs
23:42in the same African countries.
23:44So off top of my head,
23:45it'll be Nigeria,
23:46Kenya,
23:47South Africa,
23:48over and over.
23:49And then we're also now
23:50increasing the divide
23:52inside the continent.
23:53We want to support entrepreneurs
23:55across all 54 African countries
23:57because we want to lift
23:59the entire continent.
24:00If we have a rich part
24:02of the continent
24:03and a poorer part
24:04of the continent,
24:04then we're all still
24:05going to be insecure
24:06because we're not going
24:07to be safe
24:08if your neighbor is not safe.
24:09If that prosperity
24:10is not shared
24:11across the continent,
24:12then we're in trouble.
24:13So we're very adamant
24:15at not supporting entrepreneurs
24:16in the big African,
24:18you know,
24:19tech cities,
24:20but across the continent.
24:21So we have entrepreneurs
24:22from all 54 African countries
24:23in our program.
24:24And then lastly is,
24:26you know,
24:27we're very focused
24:29on women entrepreneurs.
24:30And we know
24:31that institutions
24:32traditionally,
24:33historically,
24:34have ignored
24:35a lot of women startups.
24:36And so if we went
24:37by the books,
24:38we will have fewer women
24:39who are getting empowered
24:41on our program.
24:42I just shared that last year
24:43we disperse $16.5 million
24:45to African women.
24:46It's never been done before
24:47at that scale.
24:48We had over 8,000
24:50women entrepreneurs
24:51on our program
24:52benefit from this funding,
24:53this training,
24:54and are now driving
24:55big businesses
24:56across the continent.
24:57If we went
24:58by the book,
24:59these women
25:00will continue
25:00to be ignored.
25:01Their families
25:02will continue
25:02to live under
25:03the poverty line.
25:04The children
25:04will probably
25:05not be able
25:06to access
25:06superior healthcare
25:07and education facilities.
25:09So we're in the business
25:10of democratizing luck,
25:12creating access
25:12to opportunity
25:13for thousands,
25:14not just a select few,
25:16and we'll be doing this
25:17for years to come.
25:18Last question you asked
25:19was on tech startups.
25:20So about 20%
25:21of entrepreneurs
25:22who've gone through
25:22our program
25:23identify as tech startups.
25:24But I think this number
25:26doesn't include those
25:27who don't see themselves
25:28as primarily tech,
25:29but who are in agriculture,
25:31who are in fashion,
25:32who are in retail,
25:32leveraging tech.
25:33But those who are
25:34purely tech startups,
25:3620%.
25:37But we talk about
25:38tech-enabled startups,
25:39I think we'll be talking
25:40about 50%, 60%.
25:41Well, I would love
25:42to prolong this conversation
25:43further, but unfortunately
25:44we've run out of time.
25:45Thank you, Ori, so much
25:46for having been with us.
25:48Thank you so much.
25:48It's been absolutely
25:49brilliant having you.
25:50Thank you.
25:51Thank you so much, Nadia.
25:51And thank you so much, everyone.
25:55And stay tuned.
25:56We're going to be back
25:56in just five minutes.
26:00Thank you.
26:00Yes.
26:11We're going to be back
26:14We'll be back
26:14We'll be back
26:15We'll be back
26:15to the next episode.
26:15We'll be back
26:15to the next episode.
26:15We'll be back
26:16to the next episode.
26:16We'll be back
26:16We'll be back
26:17We'll be back
Commentaires