Michael Olugbode in Abuja
The European Union (EU) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have invested €108 million through the Boost Africa initiative to support entrepreneurs across Africa, leveraging the funding to attract an additional €400 million and create up to 15,000 jobs.
EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at a media briefing on the Boost Africa Impact Forum, themed, ‘Investing in Africa’s Next Generation of Entrepreneurs: From Investment to Impact.’
Mignot said the initiative reflected the EU’s long-term partnership with Africa under its Global Gateway strategy, which seeks to promote sustainable growth, leverage private investment, create jobs and strengthen local value chains.
He said the EU was working with its member states and development banks as ‘Team Europe’ to develop quality partnerships capable of generating sustainable economic opportunities, particularly for young people.
According to him, the significance of Boost Africa goes beyond the amount of money invested, as its ultimate objective is to create tangible improvements in the lives of people through entrepreneurship, innovation and job creation.
He said: “What matters most is the impact on people. And today’s event is precisely about more than investment figures: it’s about people, it’s about entrepreneurs, it’s about innovation, it’s about jobs and opportunities created when Africa’s talent is matched with the right partners and the right financing.”
Mignot described Africa’s young entrepreneurs as among the continent’s greatest assets, saying their ideas could transform economies, strengthen communities and create sustainable prosperity.
He said Boost Africa demonstrated how collaboration among the EU, EIB, African Development Bank (AfDB), venture capital partners and African entrepreneurs could produce measurable results.
“Nigeria is one of Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems, and we believe that supporting innovation and enterprise is essential for sustainable economic growth and job creation. So this is really the core of our partnership in Nigeria,” he said.
The ambassador, however, urged stakeholders to look beyond the achievements recorded under Boost Africa and focus on expanding opportunities for the next generation of African entrepreneurs.
He noted that the EIB had recently launched several operations in Nigeria aimed at continuing support for entrepreneurs across the country.
Also speaking, EIB Country Relationship Manager for Nigeria, Moussa Nkoulima, said Boost Africa was not simply an investment in entrepreneurs but an investment in the entire ecosystem surrounding them.
Nkoulima said Africa had a large pool of young and talented entrepreneurs developing solutions in sectors including financial services, healthcare, the digital economy and renewable energy, but many were constrained by lack of capital, particularly at the earliest and riskiest stages of business development.
He said this financing gap was the reason Boost Africa was launched in 2016 by the EIB and AfDB, with support from the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).
“If we can provide African entrepreneurs with capital, if we can provide them with expertise, with knowledge, and if we can provide them with a stronger investment ecosystem, then we can build competitive African businesses, we can help create jobs, and we can solve real development problems,” Nkoulima said.
He explained that Boost Africa did not operate like a conventional commercial bank that provides direct loans to companies, but instead invested through venture capital funds and other financial intermediaries that identify and finance startups and micro, small and medium enterprises at early stages.
According to him, the EIB had worked with six venture capital funds under the initiative, an approach he said was designed to help develop a sustainable African venture capital market.
He described Boost Africa as a “smart combination of capital and capacity”, built around three major pillars: investment capital, technical assistance and ecosystem development.
Nkoulima said technical assistance was particularly important because entrepreneurs and fund managers required support in areas such as accounting, market analysis and legal structuring, while ecosystem development involved incubators, accelerators, networks, knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer.
He said the initiative had invested €108 million over the past decade, helping to attract an additional €400 million from other investors.
“For every single euro that was invested through Boost Africa, we were able to attract additional three euros through different investors, and that catalytic effect, that leverage effect, alone is one of the most important aspects of the programme,” he said.
Nkoulima said Boost Africa deliberately targeted the early and riskiest stages of business development where conventional financing institutions were often reluctant to provide funds.
He added that the initiative was not designed to replace private investors, but to take sufficient risks at the appropriate stage to encourage private capital to participate.
He cited Nigerian company, TradeDepot, as an example of businesses supported under the programme, noting that its technology platform had connected up to 40,000 retailers in Nigeria with their suppliers.
He said Nigeria represented an important market for Boost Africa because of its large and youthful population, vibrant startup ecosystem and strong entrepreneurial talent.
“Many of those business entrepreneurs lack access to solid capital and early-stage capital. And in fact, at the EIB, we found that among the very first beneficiaries of the Boost Africa programme, many of them were headquartered in Nigeria,” Nkoulima said.
He stressed that the broader objective was to help African businesses scale beyond their countries of origin and become Pan-African companies.
“When an entrepreneur in Lagos develops a solution that can be subsequently operating in Ghana, in Côte d’Ivoire, in South Africa, in Kenya, we are beginning to see the real creation, value creation, creation of genuine Pan-African champions,” he said.
Investment Director at Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF), Lavanya Anand, said the €110 million venture capital fund, established in 2019, had invested in 15 Series A technology companies across Africa.
She said EIB was one of the fund’s anchor investors, while Boost Africa provided up to €1 million in technical assistance to support specific projects involving portfolio companies and the investment team.
Anand said the fund had supported companies operating in sectors ranging from healthcare and financial services to logistics and e-commerce.
She highlighted three beneficiaries of the technical assistance: Turaco, a micro-insurance technology company; GoMyCode, an edtech company; and OZE, an SME credit-scoring technology company.
According to her, Turaco had insured more than two million previously uninsured people across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia, while Boost Africa support enabled leadership coaching for its chief executive officer.
She said GoMyCode received support for customer relationship management optimisation and talent management, while OZE received assistance in developing its bank partnership strategy, which helped it establish partnerships with financial institutions including Ecobank.
Anand said the fund’s impact extended beyond financial returns, with its portfolio creating 7,600 direct jobs and 272,000 indirect jobs, reaching more than 46 million people with improved financial services, training over 13,000 students and contributing to more than 3,000 lives saved.
Also speaking, Chief Strategy Officer of Beacon Power Services (BPS), Christine Adejorooluwa, said investment and technical support from the Boost Africa ecosystem had helped the energy technology company expand from working with one utility to having a presence in 12 utilities across seven African countries.
She said BPS developed technology that enables power utilities to improve visibility of their networks and data, helping them reduce outages, energy losses and revenue leakages.
Adejorooluwa said Seedstars Africa Ventures, a beneficiary of Boost Africa, invested in BPS at a critical stage when the company was transitioning from proving that its technology worked to scaling its operations.
She said the company subsequently received technical assistance in board governance, business development and public relations.
“We recruited our Chief Commercial Officer through that engagement with Boost Africa. So, I think it’s worth highlighting because technical assistance sometimes sounds quite abstract, but in our case, it has translated to a very real and tangible capability that exists on our leadership team today,” she said.
Adejorooluwa said Seedstars also provided strategic introductions to potential clients, partners and government stakeholders, helping BPS navigate new markets.
She said BPS had subsequently expanded across seven African countries, while an independent study commissioned through Boost Africa found that its intervention at one utility prevented approximately 78,000 megawatt-hours of lost load.
At another utility, she said, BPS had contributed to a $191 million increase in revenue through measures including identifying new customers and reducing outage hours.
“For me, that is what investment to impact really looks like,” Adejorooluwa said, adding that the impact of the investment went beyond BPS to utilities, households and businesses that depended on more reliable electricity.
She expressed appreciation to Seedstars, Boost Africa, the EU and EIB for their support, saying the combination of capital, technical assistance, governance support and access to networks had been critical to the company’s growth.