On Our Own?: Growing Francophone Startup Champions
In this conversation with founder, investor, and ecosystem builder, Omar Cissé, we discuss VC opportunities in Francophone markets, key characteristics of Francophone markets and the Senegalese startup ecosystem, how to build African startup "champions", and more.
Welcome to Episode 2 of Dans les Coulisses, a series exploring VC and tech entrepreneurship in Francophone Africa, brought to you by Impact Hub Dakar and The Trajectory Africa.
Impact Hub Dakar is a Dakar-based incubator that supports early stage startups in Senegal, with a mission to help investors meet scalable, early stage startups in Francophone Africa. The Trajectory Africa is a “pop-up” podcast exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa.
This episode’s guest is Omar Cissé. Omar is the Founder and CEO of InTouch, a platform that is working to increase financial inclusion in Africa. The platform has 50,000+ TouchPoints across 14 countries, with more than 400 services available, generating more than 2 billion euros in transaction volume per year. In 2010, he launched CTIC Dakar, the first ICT incubator in Senegal, which he managed until 2013. Prior to CTIC, he co-founded 2SI, a company specializing in software engineering, which he led from 2005 to 2010.
Omar is also the co-founder of Teranga Capital, an investment fund he launched in collaboration with Investisseurs & Partenaires, an impact investment group dedicated to SMEs based in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean. He is an engineer by training, with a degree from the École Supérieure Polytechnique of Dakar and an MBA from the Institut Supérieur de Management.
In this episode, we discuss:
- InTouch’s scale and expansion journey [2:12]
- VC opportunities in Francophone Africa and the importance of talent [8:52]
- Structure, challenges, and means to improve the Senegelese startup ecosystem [10:55]
- Investing category leaders, or industry “champions” [16:50]
- Signs of progress in the Senegalese startup ecosystem [23:31]
- Size, characteristics and constraints of Francophone markets [29:10]
- Sub-market differences in terms of regulation and talent [38:25]
- Problematic stereotypes about Francophone Africa [47:00]
NOTES:
- At 18:35, I meant to say “imported to domestically produced” instead of “domestically produced to imported”.
- At 24:40, CFA = FCFA.
This episode was recorded in July of this year, which makes the comment at 46:08 about Sequoia Capital calling for sustainable growth, a bit ironic in the aftermath of FTX’s collapse. There’s also the question of whether African startups/to what extent African startups held to the profitability mentioned.
