Speaking at the 2022 U.S.-Africa Business Summit, speakers from Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and fertilizer giant OCP Group detailed their respective organizations’ efforts to support startups in Morocco and Africa.
The panel, titled “Key Challenges & Opportunities for Emerging Startups in Africa,” dealt with various obstacles facing the continent These obstacles include a lack of financing and a poor startup culture, while they highlighted advantages like the continent’s large population and young workforce.
A need for startup culture
One major hurdle that many of the speakers agreed on is a relatively lackluster startup and entrepreneurship culture in Africa, especially when compared to places like the US.
Ali Kettani, co-founder of ALK Finance, said that African countries can be divided into tiers in this regard, with some already having a healthy investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem, while others are still catching up.
“The dream of young people in African countries is to be an entrepreneur, but they’re not properly supported by banks or networking,” he said Kettani further noted that native investment funds will be beneficial in supporting startups and making Morocco a huge pan-African player.
This lack of a startup culture can produce a cyclical effect, as Chari founder and CEO Ismael Belkhayat noted He said that for Moroccan startups, it can be hard to find the right investors abroad due to the absence of other startups to be compared with.
This lack of acknowledgment for startups ends up manifesting itself in other ways, as startups that have the potential to elevate some of the most critical sectors end up having to rely on data that is either incomplete or unavailable.
Health startups for example find themselves lacking in data that is necessary for their approval, because of inefficiencies plaguing the continent. For the panel speakers, this only highlights the need for big corporations to cooperate with startups.
OCP and agriculture startups
For OCP, leveraging technology to benefit farmers can make or break the success of startups’ ability to improve Africa’s agriculture.
Mehdi Filali, OCP Africa’s Director of Development notes that by 2030, nearly all of Africa’s farmers will have access to the internet, adding that that’s when startups can come in.
“Startups can work to bring complete solutions,” he said. “They can take knowledge from universities and academies and develop solutions.”
Despite this, there are still challenges facing startups in the continent, particularly in the agriculture sector. The attending OCP official noted that startups will have to solve several problems facing farmers on the ground in order to give them the value they need.
To this end, entrepreneurs can aim to provide farmers with better access to fertilizer and good quality seeds, which are often essential for good yields.
Additionally, projects that provide farmers with training and knowledge in fields like water management and fertilizer applications can also provide substantial benefits, as technical know-how is often listed as one of the things lacking in Africa.
Finally, startups have to provide farmers with access to markets, allowing them to provide products for a good enough price, at the right time to incentivize further production.
UM6P’s startup efforts
Filali notes that in order to achieve this, proofs of concept have to be scaled accordingly and made into concrete startups, calling attention to support programs such as the ones UM6P offers as valuable efforts.
Through its capital venture investment arm and a pan-African vision, UM6P has recently boosted efforts to invest in Moroccan and African startups.
In March, UM6P Ventures invested in Atarec, a Moroccan renewable energy startup. Additionally, the university continues to support startups on the continent through programs like Startgate which provide facilities and support for startups looking to achieve growth.
“UM6P, of course, through its venturing and entrepreneurship departments is trying to contribute at least to positioning Morocco and Africa at the forefront of technology,” UM6P’s Director of Entrepreneurship and Venturing Yassine Laghzioui told Morocco World News.
“Most agree that African potential growth is just huge, with great potential for the startup ecosystem,” he emphasized.
He added that startups have the potential to address some of the continent’s most pressing issues, such as food security, youth employment, and exploitation of natural resources.
“Numbers don’t lie, because during the last years, the total funding for startups increased exponentially,” he noted. “In 2021, it was more than 5 billion [US dollars] which was more than 20 times the figure of 2015.”
The university has additionally launched a startup incubator focused on agricultural solutions earlier this year, under the name “AgriFood Tech,” emphasizing the need for food security solutions in Africa.
