With access to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as trade agreements with the EU and much of Africa and an increasingly educated workforce, Tunisia has much to offer entrepreneurs. The Tunisian government actively supports startups, with the Tunisia Startup Act of 2018 streamlining the process of starting and running a business here and providing a stipend for founders during the first year of activity. The act also established fast-tracking of international patents.

Startup investment in Tunisia increased 31% between 201\7 to 2021, totalling $38.2 million across 54 deals in the 2020-21 period. Startup Tunisia is a referral initiative that offers DEAL grants of up to TND 200,000 ($67,000) to assist with the launch of new startup support programs. Digital innovation hub The DOT opened in June 2021 with the mission to accelerate the digital transformation of Tunisian society. 2021 also saw the launch of 40 new startup support programs across the ecosystem, including incubators such as CoStarT, coworking spaces including Coworky and Hive12, and entrepreneurial training programs such as Foundup.

Seed and early-stage VC firm Flat6Labs has increased its Tunisia-based Anava Seed Fund (ASF) from $3 million to $10 million. ASF was launched in 2017 in partnership with the Tunisian American Enterprise Fund, BIAT Bank, and Meninx Holding. Tunisia’s Expensya, a maker of expense-management software, raised a $20 million Series B in May 2021. Wattnow, a smart energy management solution, raised a $1.3 million pre-Series A in March 2022.