In August 2021, startup ecosystem players in Ivory Coast gathered in Yamoussoukro to develop a local law fostering startups in the West African country. Two years later, the bill has been approved by the Ivorian Council of Ministers, the country’s top executive decision-making body.

The bill, among other things, establishes the terms of financing and support for digital startups under Ivorian law. Its special goal is to support the development and sustainability of these vulnerable enterprises’ creative activity until they reach maturity, in order to maximise their contribution to the transformation of the national economy and the quality of life of the people.

Through that purpose, the law establishes an incentive system, including tax and customs benefits, as well as many other administrative assistance and facilitation measures, for the benefit of national startups, from the formation phase to the development phase.

Read also Nigerian Mobility Fintech Startup Shekel Mobility Raises $1.95M In Pre-Seed Funding

It also calls for the formation of a Committee, a specific organisation charged with registering and labelling existing digital startups on across the country in order to properly support them.

In early 2021, the Ivorian Minister of Youth Promotion and Youth Employment, Mamadou Touré, launched, in Abidjan, a college of technological and innovative companies called “Côte d’Ivoire Innovation 20 (# Ci20)” aimed, in particular, at uniting all startups in the West African country. The organization comprises 15 young entrepreneurs, including 11 winners of the National Award of Excellence and more than 85 national and international awards. 

startup law Ivory Coast

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