• Tunisia’s Smart Capital, the government-mandated manager of the Anava fund of funds has partnered with the German Development Bank (KfW) to secure €20 million ($21 million) in funding, as well as a technical assistance agreement amount of €4 million.
• The subscription of German cooperation through KfW brings the size of the Anava fund of funds to €60 million out of a target size of €100 million.
• The fund aims to strengthen the impact on Tunisia’s innovative economy and the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Source: African Heroes

KfW, a German Development Bank, and Smart Capital, the entity mandated by the Tunisian government to manage the Startup Tunisia project, have signed, on Thursday, December 1, 2022, KfW’s subscription form to the Anava fund of funds for an amount of €20 million, as well as the technical assistance agreement dedicated to the same fund for an amount of €4 million, all within the framework of the bilateral cooperation programme between Germany and Tunisia.

The subscription of German cooperation through KfW brings the size of the Anava fund of funds to €60 million out of a target size of €100 million, and will significantly strengthen the impact on Tunisia’s innovative economy, because this capital will allow irrigating the Tunisian entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is already in full swing, with financial support eagerly awaited by young start-ups through the creation by 2025 of 13 underlying investments. It will also allow for the creation of a new generation of funds within the context of this programme.

The technical support package, for its part, develops Smart Capital’s capacities and improves its resources and tools for managing and monitoring the fund of funds in accordance with the best worldwide standards of the underlying funds and the eventual beneficiaries, namely startups.

With this agreement, KfW and Smart Capital solidify one of the cornerstones of Startup Tunisia, an ambitious and innovative investment programme firmly backed by the Tunisian government and the German side.

These signatures were obtained on the sidelines of the Intergovernmental Monitoring Committee meeting between Germany and Tunisia in Berlin from November 29 to December 1.

Recall that the Caisse des dépôts et consignations is the lead investor in the Anava fund of funds, with an initial commitment of €40 million made possible by a World Bank loan to the Tunisian government as part of the “Startups and SMEs” project.