According to our 2019 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, Lagos, Nigeria is a Challenger ecosystem, growing fast and positioned for further development. We know that the African continent is teeming with more startup hubs that are going to change the world, and Startup Genome wants to help unlock and release that entrepreneurial energy.

We are excited to announce that we recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Digital Africa at the VivaTech conference in Paris. Digital Africa is a French government initiative that supports the African tech ecosystem, and it was launched last year by President Macron. Digital Africa is led by President and Chairman Karim Sy and Chief Operating Officer Soumeya Rachedi. Together with Digital Africa and our combined network of partners, we hope to achieve three primary objectives.

First, we are offering our knowledge and resources to help create a common language and understanding of startups and startup ecosystems. Second, we want to contribute to a standardized infrastructure for data collection, allowing the Digital Africa network to measure the performance of African startup ecosystems in the international context and identify opportunities for growth. Third, we want to drive global and local visibility of African startup ecosystems among our network of international startups, investors and policy leaders.

With Digital Africa as a strong partner, we are confident we will play a key part in accelerating and celebrating African startup ecosystem development. We also are looking forward to including more African ecosystems in our next Global Startup Ecosystem Report, as more development occurs and we get access to more data.

We simply can’t wait to work with Digital Africa and partners to help create a common ground for collaboration among key players in the entire African ecosystem. Together, we will build on the important work Digital Africa has already initiated over the last couple of months. We’re calling all African ecosystem leaders and builders to join our mission and global knowledge network.

Let’s get to work!