ICTworks by Inveneo

Although investment in Africa has traditionally focused on commodities rather than technologies, the explosion of mobile usage has opened up opportunities for small-business development.
Memeburn explores some of the continent’s incubators for entrepreneurs to consider before taking the next step. It’s worth remembering that the investor climate is often make or break when it comes to finding angel investors.

Nigeria
Enspire is more than an incubation programme as it aims to support the establishment of businesses that graduate from the initial stage of developing an idea.
The group’s vision encompasses seeing incubating business through to the forefront in developing new and innovative technologies, directly creating products and services, according to TechLoy.
In August 2010, the initiative incubated three ideas, including software engineering and web-portal solution projects that were carried out over a six-week period.
Nigeria has a massive population, which is ideal for cultivating a large market. It is projected by development economist Jeffery Sachs to serve as Africa’s powerhouse within the next two decades — if not sooner. In this context, the international tech media sector has given Nigeria some attention. It is evidently well deserved.

Ghana
Ghana is certainly not short on opportunities for innovation, and both the private sector and the state are committed to startup culture.
The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) trains and mentors aspiring African software entrepreneurs. The European-based company says its goal is the creation of wealth and local jobs in Africa. Working in partnership with the UN, the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre was set up in 2005, and aims to advance ICT entrepreneurship development through the incubation of ICT business startups.
The venture is in partnership with the country’s government and aims to help young businesses that have “ground-breaking and innovative ICT ideas to mature into viable business ventures”, according to Ghana Unlimited.

South Africa
Memeburn recently broke the news of one of the country’s most exciting ventures yet: Google’s latest venture for incubating South African startups.
Identified startups receive six months free office space and bandwidth, between US$25 000 to US$50 000 investment capital, access to Google mentors, and free publicity.
The venture, called Umbombo (Zulu for vision), has Cape Town as its home as Google is confident that the city is positioning itself as a hub for innovation and technology.

Egypt
Tahrir2 is a the first technology hub based in Egypt’s city of Alexandria and is backed by Mohammed Gawdat, Google’s managing director for emerging markets and businesses in Southern, Central, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
According to a report by ArabCrunch.com, Tahrir Square offers startups physical location, mentorship and funding. The amount of money placed in each business will vary, though successful entrepreneurs can look at around US$15 000.

Tanzania
The first phase of the Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (NM-AIST) is complete. Construction of the institute’s vital structures has been under way at the site since August this year at a cost of Sh38.7-billion (around US$25 000), reports africanbrains.net. There are scholarships now available and applications are open. The centre may serve as an entry point for the East African nation’s startups.

Kenya
Kenya, Africa’s mobile rising star, is a growing hub that has attracted a number of East Africa’s entrepreneurs. Technologically, one can argue that Kenya has made the biggest strides when it comes to internet connectivity.
NaiLabs is one of four fresh incubators that has opened in Kenya in the past two years, providing fast internet connections with a specific focus on web, mobile and social media solutions. NaiLabs caters for a 100 startups per given period and, of those, the most promising 10 are incubated at the NaiLabs facilities, TechZim reports.
There’s no doubt that Africa’s incubators are growing, with new centres opening each year. The next five years may provide a snapshot as to how the investment in facilitating the next big innovation correlates with success. And, for investors who have chosen wisely, the payoffs should be good.

Source

I love that Sarah Lacy went to Nigeria and came back with the TechCrunch article Yes, There Are Tech Startups in Nigeria. Here Are My Favorites.. I am so tired of the usual press reports focused on the negative or dismissive of ICT skills outside of South Africa.

Thank you TechCrunch!

Now let us call for other new organizations to do the same and show what we already know: ICT is a growth business across Africa, and Africans are leading the way.

People are usually afraid to start their own businesses, because of lacking money, experience, co-founders, etc. IPO48 is here to change that mindset and prove that it's mostly about new ideas, positive energy and talented team.

IPO48 is a boot-camp-style initiative to build new web and mobile services in just 48 hours - October 29-31, 2010. The best team gets 1'000'000 Ksh (10K EUR) in investment! IPO48 takes place on the last weekend of October in Nairobi, Kenya. We are hosted by Strathmore University

How it works?

1. Registerfor IPO48, choose a role based on your skillset
2. Everybody can submit business ideas on HumanIPO
3. Mentors and participants can review and comment submitted ideas
   
4. Best business plans will be presented during Friday, 29th of October
5. People form teams, start working on the projects to deliver in 48hours
6. Sunday evening 6pm - demo day: teams show their working services

Organizers

IPO48 Nairobi is organized by HumanIPO and some people from Garage48.org. HumanIPO is a startup platform founded in 2009 and focuses on bringing together small investors with entrepreneurs and startups by collaborating and networking via a social media platform.

It’s well known that there’s a problem with seed capital in Africa and Cameroon is no exception. We’ve spoken with many enterprising young hackers who’ve found that funds were simply unavailable or local investors demanded absurdly high equity stakes in their businesses—at times as much as 60-80%.

Limbe Labs seed capital

At Limbe Labs Ventures, we concentrate on seed funding in the range of $5,000 - $20,000. In return, we take an equity stake in the range of 5-10%, depending on the level of risk.

We help startups share the risks of investments - we earn when you earn, we lose when you lose. We’re flexible - there is no standard package and additional finance can be provided.

Private equity investments have no guarantee for the investor, so we focus on the credibility of the founder and the quality of the business idea to make our investment decisions. Our investments are accompanied with the full assistance (or as much as needed) of a business incubator - specific resources and assistance can be provided as required.

Our preferred exit strategies

Every investor wants to see an exit. Our goal is to exit within 2-5 years. Here are the three ways we can exit a startup (most common to least common):

1. We sell the shares to the shareholders
2. We sell the shares to a reputable person or company in the market who has extensive knowledge of the industry
3. We bring your company to the stock market, sell shares to external investors (IPO). 20 years ago there were only a handful of African stock exchanges. Today there are 16.

Alternate funding structures

Limbe Labs does not necessarily take an equity stake in the companies we fund. We recognize that founders are unique, as are their business ideas and capital needs. Therefore, we make use of a flexible range of investment tools. One is project work in exchange for seed capital.

Startup founders are matched to a commercial software project of an appropriate size (1-3 months), they are paid a high monthly salary while gaining valuable experience doing client work, and receive a lump sum payment at project completion, providing them with enough capital to bootstrap a business venture.

This post is part of the presentation, "Can An African Tech Entrepreneur Change the World?"

While the Great Recession may be shrinking the appetite for business risk in the developed world, I was struck by the long list of African technology startups compiled by TechMasai. Even better are the comments, where readers take exception that this list of 56 companies is the complete list of startups.

New business even online

They have a good point. This list is only of the startups that TechMasai has heard of. I am sure there are 2-3x as many operating under the radar, and enjoying good profits before others notice their lucrative business models and compete against them.

But its not just little guys who are making moves into the African ICT community. Even massive stalwarts like IBM are now realizing that Africa is a real IT market, with their cloud-computing enabled netbook software partnership with Ubuntu.

I agree with Theresa Carpenter Sondjo that Africa may not be ready for the cloud-computing IBM is thinking of - the connectivity isn't there yet - but I disagree with her about netbooks. These small and cheap laptops are a real alternative to regular computers and the 4P Computing revolution will change the way Africans approach technology.

And its time we all approached African technologists - as partners and employees. Find both at Zebrajobs.com, the first Africa-wide Virtual Job Fair that opens on September 30th 2009. While it too relies on broadband Internet that can be rare or expensive in Africa, its online location is still cheaper and easier to reach than a physical job fair.

See ya there!