The third edition of Smart Capital’s annual report, which is responsible for carrying out the national Startup Tunisia initiative, has recently been released.
Business angels are becoming more engaged with startups.
According to the Startup Tunisia report, this group of investors has invested 6.7 million dinars until 2021, totaling more than 22 investments, a rise of more than 900,000 dinars from 2020.
45 individuals and 1 network conducted business angel fundraising in 2021, with 57% of their efforts going to businesses in the B2B sector (Business to Business).
Despite a relatively challenging environment, the number of companies is increasing.
Startup Tunisia reports that branded startups generated 120 million dinars in revenue in 2021, an increase of 67% over the previous year. The Edtech, Business Software, and IA sectors each contribute 23% to the total consolidated turnover of 24.4 million dinars, which is monopolised by eCommerce at 25%. Business-to-business transactions account for over 42% of total revenue, and Europe continues to be the top market for selling Tunisian innovation (with a share of 22.31%), ahead of our domestic market (46%).
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Fundraising that develops and goes global
129 investment transactions totaling 45 million dinars of locally sourced capital were completed in 2021.
If we include the outside fundraising efforts made by Tunisian startups, this amount rises to 105 million dinars.
With 32% of international investors (14% Europeans, 10% Middle Eastern, 6% African, and 2% American), even if these numbers are still rather modest, we can see that they are clearly evolving and that foreign investors are fostering a rising passion for the Tunisian start-up sector.
The International Founders: A crucial pillar of Tunisia’s development
Startup Tunisia tracks the percentage of international entrepreneurs who founded firms in Tunisia each year in its annual report.
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Despite a challenging local environment, the startup ecosystem has been successful in luring a number of foreign firms. This analysis reveals that 33 firms were formed or were co-founded by foreigners, with entrepreneurs from the MENA region (14.5%) and European countries (65.5%) dominating the list.
There are more participants and undoubtedly more resources in the ecosystem thanks to startups and support groups.
With regard to the ecosystem’s ability to assist startups, this third study shows that it is expanding and solidifying.
According to the report, as an illustration, the Flywheel programme assisted more than 40 organisations in 2021 with 22 AIR grants (30,000 dinars allocated for very-early stage start-ups), 11 AIR2 grants (between 150 and 200,000 dinars for startups in “seed-stage”), and 10 DEAL grants (200,000 dinar envelopes for “Startup Support Organizations”).
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The yearly report of Startup Tunisia includes a full description of additional projects and their effects, showing that the dynamic started in 2018 is still alive and growing.
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Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh