Orange Tunisia continues to actively support Tunisian startups through its comprehensive program, ranging from support to acceleration, through the Orange Digital Center. This year, the 5th cohort of Orange Fab Tunisia includes 7 newly accelerated startups, bringing the total number to 30 and the number of contracts signed since 2019 to 44. Throughout the business support process, these startups have been able to develop their commercial activities in just a few months.

Operating in different sectors, the 7 accelerated startups stand out for their innovative solutions focused on cutting-edge technologies:

1. Kumulus: A startup aiming to provide affordable and sustainable drinking water. Their machines, the size of a mini-fridge, produce drinkable water using only solar energy and air as resources. During their acceleration with Orange Fab Tunisia, the startup signed a tripartite partnership with the Orange Group Foundation, Orange Tunisia Foundation, and the “Un enfant, Des sourires” association for the deployment of three Kumulus machines in different regions.
   
2. Historiar: A startup specialized in e-culture, reconstructing archaeological and heritage sites using mixed reality and artificial intelligence. After the business acceleration program with Orange Fab Tunisia, the startup obtained its first international contract to create an educational and cultural MOOC on Carthage, funded by the Orange Group Foundation, with scientific support from Tunisian public institutions for heritage preservation. The MOOC will soon be available on Cultural MOOCs — Orange Foundation.
   
3. Club Privilèges: A mobile application offering discounts of up to 30% with over 1200 partners, including restaurants, clothing stores, hotels, and more. During the acceleration program, the startup integrated mobile payment into their Club Privilèges platform, allowing Orange customers to subscribe to daily subscriptions using their phone balance and save up to one month’s salary per year. Exclusive, diverse, and tailored offers for Orange customers are also available on the My Orange application.
   
4. Bakchich: A community platform helping content creators monetize their work through innovative features for publishing freemium and premium content, with payment options including credit cards. With the support of Orange Fab Tunisia, the startup implemented a new payment method on their platform. Users can now support and reward content creators through tips and/or subscriptions during streaming sessions, using mobile recharge in addition to credit cards.
   
5. Digibrain Agency: A new digital sales and animation channel enabling brands/retailers to market their products through live shopping on social networks, providing a better customer experience. Following the business acceleration with Orange Fab Tunisia, the startup signed a contract with Orange Tunisia, becoming its first major client. They are currently in the technical deployment phase for an imminent launch.
   
6. Pwn & Patch: With its intelligent dark web monitoring and surveillance platform called Oktoboot, Pwn & Patch detects various data leaks that threaten businesses. Additionally, Pwn & Patch offers cybersecurity consulting services. The acceleration within Orange Fab Tunisia created synergy between startups, promoting the exchange of services and products between Pwn & Patch and Yoteki. Furthermore, a business partnership is currently under negotiation.
   
7. Yoteqi: An innovative SAAS solution designed to help professionals network and acquire new clients through digital business cards (NFC), a personal website generator, and an AI/machine learning-enhanced contact manager. Thanks to a recent B2B speed dating event organized by Orange Fab Tunisia, the startup signed several contracts with Orange Tunisia’s business partners and present startups.

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Stay tuned for the announcement of the next call for applications for the 6th season of Orange Fab Tunisia.

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

Through its complete ecosystem support structure, Orange Tunisia continues to support Tunisian start-ups: over the course of three seasons, Orange Fab Tunisia has accelerated a total of 18 startups. Following a 3- to 6-month business acceleration program, these young entrepreneurs reported an increase in their business operations. They were also successful in forming business relationships with the Orange Group’s market lines and/or foreign partners.
Orange Fab Tunisia has thus accelerated 6 start-ups for its third season:

“This is a third season which further anchors the business collaboration of Orange Tunisia with the start-up ecosystem, for more agility and common innovation and certainly more economic impact. Working with start-ups is also our role in supporting digital transformation in Tunisia,” said Thierry Millet, Managing Director of Orange Tunisia. 

The accelerated startups include: 

Dabchy

Dabchy (e-commerce) is a circular economy-based online vide-dressing room geared mostly toward women. It is the first Tunisian start-up to get funding from Orange Ventures (the Orange Group’s investment arm) during the MEA Seed Challenge in 2020. Following Orange Fab Tunisia’s acceleration, the start-up and Orange Tunisie have launched exclusive “Good Deals” for their respective communities via the My Orange application, with a promotion schedule spanning several weeks. Dabchy has also launched a new service that will allow the community of “dabchouchas” to boost their sales by paying for subscriptions with their mobile balance, thanks to mobile payment.

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iCompass 

iCompass (Artificial Intelligence / NLP) specializes in AI and, in particular, automatic natural language processing (NLP), a set of deep learning and reinforcement learning algorithms used to develop voice transcription services, automatic voice generation, and chatbot / voicebot products. Orange Fab Tunisia’s acceleration helped the company to not only get access to international investors, but also to develop and personalize its product to meet an unique requirement of Orange Tunisia’s customer service.

Seabex

Seabex (Agritech) is a precision agriculture control and automation platform that aids in resource optimization and productivity improvement. The start-up has inked a public-private cooperation agreement with the Citrus Technical Center (CTA), Agrilap, and Orange Tunisie, with the goal of expanding its operations beyond Tunisia, specifically to the Orange Group’s 18 African subsidiaries.

Kademia

Kademia (Edtech) is a Tunisian distance learning platform that offers engaging digital and interactive courses to kids, middle and high school students, allowing them to access them from wherever they are and complete them at their own leisure. Following the company’s rapid growth, Orange Fab Tunisia has increased its payment options, allowing users to sign up for subscriptions that are paid for with their Orange mobile balance.

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Ahkili

Ahkili (Healthtech) is a B2C and B2B helpline that provides teleconsultations from qualified psychologists, without an appointment, 7 days a week and until midnight on a variety of topics, such as work-life balance or balancing personal and professional lives. Following its acceleration at Orange Fab Tunisia, the start-up expanded its B2B offering, resulting in a deal with Sofrecom Tunisia.

Liberrex

A cloud-based queue management system is available from Liberrex (Queue Management / AI). This solution enables all service providers who use first-come, first-served or boking to control client flow using a web and mobile application or a USSD code. After completing the acceleration program at Orange Fab Tunisia, the start-up formed a strategic relationship with Katomi, a Tunisian healthtech start-up, to collaborate on Patientelo, a completely new product. Liberrex has also signed an agreement to deploy its technology with one of Orange Tunisia’s banking partners.

“Insofar as Orange Digital Centers are dedicated to digital support and innovation for everybody, the combined Orange and GIZ project is an example of a successful relationship between German development cooperation and the private sector…We hope to see them flourish and rise to the rank of giants,” Norman Shraepel, Director of the GIZ digital transformation initiative in Tunisia, said.

The next call for applications for the 4th season of Orange Fab Tunisia comes up later this October. 

To more click here.

3rd Orange Fab Tunisia 3rd Orange Fab Tunisia

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer