IPAE 1

Tincy is an industrial bakery created in 2009 in Cotonou. Tincy produces and distributes bread to consumers through a shop, a network of 24 kiosks, more than 50 shopkeepers and professionals from hostelry and restauration sectors.

The bakery is launched in 2009. Initially conceived as a simple marketing exercise, the project proved to be a real success. In 2010, the turnover of the bakery exceeded the one of the consulting firm. Gatien Adjaboni is deeply involved in this new activity and has notably launched the National Association of Bakers of Benin, which gathers a dozen of professionals and represents to this day the only union in the sector.

The Entrepreneur

The company was founded by Gatien Adjagboni, a young Beninese entrepreneur who graduated from a French business school. He started his career at the Brtitish America. In 2006, he launched a consulting firm, named Tincy. The firm is still operational and employs about 10 people.

Partnership with I&P

I&P committed alongside Tincy to:

• Double the production capacity of the company

• Improve the quality and the management of the production and the distribution

• Diversify the products by starting making pastries

Impacts

• Increased availability of bread thanks to a dense network of distribution

• Structuring of the sector

Founded in 1993 and managed by Simon Rakotondrahova, SCRIMAD specializes in the collect and export of litchi production, among other fruits and spices (vanilla, black pepper, cinnamon, etc.).

SCRIMAD is certified "Fair Trade" and notably works with ETHIQUABLE, a french co-op specialized in organic agriculture and fair trade. The partnership with I&P aims to help the company diversify its activities and ensure stable income to the partner farmer organisations.

The entrepreneur

Founder and manager of SCRIMAD, Simon Rakotondrahova has notably chaired the Madagascar Chamber of Commerce and Industry and “Gelmada”, a gathering of Litichi exporters in Madagascar.

Partnership with I&P

I&P committed alongside Scrimad to:

• Settle a production unit specialized in the production of fruit puree and frozen fruits

• Take energy efficiency measures in this new production unit

• Train the producers so that they meet the requirements established by BIO-GLOBALCAP and ETHIQUABLE

• Strengthen the capacities of the operational management team

PEG Africa is a young company which aims to bring off-grid solar energy access to rural and peri-urban communities in West Africa by providing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar home systems to rural and remote customers. The company has started its activities in Ghana.

The model of the company is based on the combination of technical, distribution, and financial innovations:

• Technical innovation: the product itself is a small solar kit allowing the client to light a few bulbs, recharge a phone, and listen to the radio. It is connected with the PEG management information system through mobile technology allowing the company to monitor remotely a number of items.  
• Distribution: the company is setting distribution points with dedicated sales teams around the country.
• Financial innovation: this is probably the most important innovation. The client is paying its solar system as he uses it through mobile money payment of a few Euros per month. If he doesn’t pay and recharge credit, the system is blocked and not usable by the client. After one year of payments, the client owns the product.

PEG has secured a licensing partnership with M-KOPA, the leading company in PAYG solar technology in Africa. M-KOPA has successfully deployed its products and methodology to more than 200,000 households in East Africa.

The entrepreneurs

Hugh Whalan, the CEO, has focused on energy and financing in West Africa for the last 6 years. He started the first crowd-funding site for energy, and a fast growing solar distribution company in Ghana, which he sold to a NY-based investor. Prior to his work in Africa, he was the director of business development for the largest US based carbon project developer.

Nate Heller, the Chief Operating Officer, has over 13 years of experience in international development, including stints with the UN, the Peace Corps, and multiple social enterprises. He spent 6 of those years building innovative distribution channels for poor consumers in West Africa.

Partnership with I&P

I&P committed alongside PEG to:

• Finance and support the company’s expansion drive in Ghana and the sub-region

• Help structure the business in its early stages and institute appropriate corporate governance

• Facilitate debt and grant capital fundraising for the company to meet its target objectives

Expected Impact

• Connect over 500,000 remote and rural households in West Africa to solar power within 5 years

• Create significant financial inclusion by making off-grid households into a knowable and attractive customer proposition

• Reduce carbon emissions by replacing traditional kerosene use with a cleaner source of power

• Grow local employment by partnering with large local sales teams to drive growth over multiple regions

For over 15 years, Eden Tree Limited has been the leading independent provider of fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs in Ghana.

The company buys fresh produce, cleans, packs and distributes it to retail, wholesale, and catering clients. Eden Tree currently supplies a variety of over 80 vegetables and fruits from over 375 outgrower farming families. 

The Entrepreneur

Catherine Krobo Edusei started Eden Tree in 1997 on her return to Ghana from the UK, where she worked as an administrator in a bank for 7 years. She has since demonstrated a strong passion and track record for growing the enterprise and engaging external funding and capacity-building to support business expansion. She is nationally recognized in Ghana as a strong promoter of women in business and received the 2013 national award from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in Ghana for “outstanding contribution towards nation-building”. 

Partnership with I&P

I&P committed alongside Eden Tree to:

• Increase the company's total sales volume and profitability 

• Grow and diversify its set of customers and channel partners 

• Increase reliability, cost-competitiveness and quality raw material supply 

Expected Impacts

• Increase its output from 1 to 4 tons per day to supply underserved markets 

• Directly impacting the lives of 2,000 family members in rural communities 

• Contribute to food safety and quality

• Respond to increasing incidence of agro-chemical abuse by farmers 

• Ensure that smallholders undertake their activities safely and sustainably 

ENVAL LABORATOIRE, based in Ivory Coast, is one of the most important laboratory of physico-chemical and microbiological analyses in West Africa.

Officially founded in 2012, ENVAL LABORATOIRE is specialized in microbiological and physico-chemical tests and analyses. The company has recently expanded its activities and conducts soil, foliar and oil analyses, as well as noise-measuring and air quality analyses.

ENVAL aims to expand its activities to the mining sector in new site located in Yamoussoukro and wishes to reinforce its capacity regarding physico-chemical analyses.

The Entrepreneur

Bakary Coulibaly has over 20 years of experience in chemical analysis and company management. He conducted several studies in Ivory-Coast and the sub-region for local entities and multinational companies such as TOTAL, CIPREL and PISA-IMPEX. Bakary has created Enval Laboratoire with 3 Ivorian associates.

Partnership with I&P

I&P is committed alongside ENVAL to:

• Reinforce the microbiological and physico-chemical activity of the company

• Expand is activities to mining analyses by supporting the launch of a new laboratory dedicated to this activity

• Cover the regional market for mining analyses

• Expand the activities to soil and foliar analyses, as well as pesticide analyses

Expected Impact

• Contribute to support an emerging mining sector in the region

• Reinforce the environmental policy of the company

• Create more than 30 skilled jobs

Indian Ocean Trepang (IOT) is a Malagasy company specialized in the breeding and export of sea cucumbers. Local fishermen are associated with its activities, allowing them to generate additional income. The company actively contributes to preserving marine wildlife & fighting against overfishing.

IOT breeds sea cucumbers in the South of Madagascar. This specie’s reproduction remains scarcely human-engineered because of a high mortality rate during the early life stages. IOT’s growing technique was developed by a team of Malagasy scientists, being the only company in Madagascar to control the process. Sufficiently mature, larvae are ceased to neighboring fishermen who raise them to maturity before re-selling them to IOT to be dried, packed and exported.

This specie does not require any additional food but the natural waste found in the sand. Thus, their breeding does not have any other incident on their natural environment apart from clearing the water.

Indian Ocean Trepang is one of the company featured by the project Small is Powerful

The Team

Jaco Chan Kit Waye is Manager of Copefrito SA and Chairman of the Seafood Export Companies Association. In 1995 he founded Copefrito which exports squids and calamari to Europe.

Olivier Méraud works since 2004 with Copefrito as an operational officer. He has been a Merchant Navy captain and worked in fishing and seafood business for 12 years. He created Madagascar Seafood in 2005, a crab, squid and lobster export company.

Partnership with I&P

I&P committed alongside with IOT

• To help the company improve its GIS

• To finance the farm site construction

Impacts

• 152 jobs created or maintained over 6 years, including 77 permanent positions and 11 as technicians or managers

• Pilot project in the sea cucumbers breeding with good prospects to be reproduced

• Steady revenue-generating activity for the local fishermen and neighboring villages

• Awareness raised on the wild specie over-exploitation and repopulation of the natural stocks

Nest is a medical network settled in Senegal, offering a complete monitoring of woman and young child.

Founded in 2012, NEST provides a complete monitoring of woman and children thanks to a pediatric and maternity hospital. NEST offers high-quality health services at reasonable price, primarily aimed at middle classes. Accessible 24/24 and 7/7, NEST puts a particular emphasis seeing and listening to patients, and allows young women of child-breeding age to be followed until the birth, and a follow-up of their children until they are 15 years old.

This model, inspired from the Indian private chain of maternity hospitals Lifespring Hospital, is particularly relevant in Senegal, where local medical offer is shared between expensive private clinics and public infrastructures suffering from a lack of technical means and standards. NEST embodies a gap-filling role within this market.

NEST is one of the companies featured by the project Small is Powerful

The Entrepreneur

Khadidiatou Nakoulima grew up in Senegal and graduated from Mines de Paris in 2009. Several members of her family working in the medical field, Khady is deeply aware of the health issues in Senegal. She founded NEST in 2012 with the help of her father, Alassane, her brother Ousseynou and Dr. Adboulaye DIOP, gynaecologist. Khadidiatou currently manages the company. She aims at establishing a health network dedicated to woman and children in West Africa for low and middle-income populations.

Partnership with I&P

I&P is committed alongside Nest for All to:

• Provide a preliminary expertise regarding maternity and its equipment

• Finance the equipment and complete the maternity construction site

• Bring a support to the administrative and financial management teams (Management and information system, contracts with doctors…)
 

Key Impacts

• Improvement of children and pregnant women medical follow-up

• Larger health services access to the greater

• Medical waste management

Founded in Gabon in 2012 by Folly Koussawo with the support of Seydou Béyé, Trianon Homes is a real estate development and construction company with three core businesses: third-party construction, turnkey project design and construction, and real estate development.

From the outset, Trianon Homes took the gamble of positioning itself as the missing link in Gabon's construction industry: a company combining the agility of a small-scale structure with the application of a structured group. Trianon quickly demonstrated the viability of its model, winning over public and private clientele.

After a decade of activity and successful experience in real estate development in Gabon, Trianon is now stepping up its real estate development operations aimed at middle-class families in several African countries: Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Benin. The company's ambition is to respond to the problem of access to property ownership, which is becoming increasingly difficult in African cities, where land prices have risen sharply in recent decades as a result of galloping urbanization.

Today, Trianon has 50 employees, over 200 local subcontractors, 85 completed projects and plans to deliver hundreds of new homes every year for real estate development projects.

The entrepreneur

Folly Koussawo is a Franco-Gabonese entrepreneur in his forties, and has been running the company since its creation in 2012. He graduated from the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce IPAG in Nice, and holds a DESS in real estate from the Sorbonne (Paris). After graduating, he began his career as an auditor with Grant Thornton in France, before joining Kaufman & Broad (K&B), one of France's leading property development groups, for a period of 7 years.

Since June 2023, Folly Koussawo has also been President of the Club Africain des Entrepreneurs, a pan-African organization created in 2016 and bringing together women and men invested in the entrepreneurial adventure and united by a shared commitment to sustainable and responsible development in Africa. 

Words from the new president of the Club Africain des Entrepreneurs

Partnership with I&P

The first partnership between Trianon and I&P dates back to 2014, with initial financing provided through the I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 1 (IPAE1) fund, which enabled the company to structure itself and increase its production capacity (prefabrication unit, wood and metal joinery, equipment fleet).  

This new financing, completed in 2023, will help Trianon take another step forward in the development of its activities, notably real estate development in Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire.

Expected impact

• Access to home ownership and sustainable, quality housing for middle-class African families;  
• Creation of formal jobs;  
• Raising local construction standards.

ITG Store is an IT services company offering service and infrastructure integration. The company creates a strong local added value through management information systems, data storage and other services. Relying on a local team of expert engineers, ITG has earned the trust of major clients operating in the region.

Though the African SI market is booming, it still remains overwhelmed by foreign companies. ITG Store has easily overcome this strong competition thanks to same-level quality services at lowest prices. The company creates a strong local added value through SI management, data storage and other services. Its CEOs, computer engineers Gabriel Fopa and Eric Heslot relies on a young team they have trained within the company.

ITG is now the exclusive African computing partner of Bolloré, one of the most powerful financial and industrial French conglomerates.

THE ENTREPRENEURS

Gabriel Fopa and Eric Heslot were both computing engineers at the SSI company SILICOMP. In 2006, they decided to create their own SSII in Douala. The entrepreneurs financed all the equipment and software with their own capital. Then, they trained a team of engineers and technicians recruited locally. Since 2007, the company won a great number of bids and tenders, constituting a thick portfolio of big firms.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P is committed alongside ITG Store to:

• To accompany the strong growth of its activities, particularly with regard to internal infrastructures and working environment

• To bring financings addressed to the creation of a test and training center to fill the structural lack of qualified local human resources in this sector. 

• Construction of green building for the new headquarters and data center

• Ensure basic healthcare cover for employees

KEY IMPACTS

• Number of created jobs: 73, including 11 women and a large majority of high-skilled employees

• Development and promotion of local skills in the computing field

• Recruitment policy toward young degreed and continuous training of employees.

• Company governance structuration

Sofamac is engaged in the production of clay construction, such as tiles and clay bricks, intended for local use.

Clay production, which was quite common until the end of the 1970s, now offers a real market opportunity. The products show great thermic and time resistance and match an unsatisfied local demand for construction and equipment.

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Moussa Dia is a civil engineer entrepreneur who ran for more than twenty years an engineering and metallic construction business (sheds, water towers…) in Saint-Louis, Northern Senegal. His passion for terracotta and the opportunity of the market led him to found SOFAMAC a small terracotta handcrafted production unit.

PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P

I&P committed alongside with Sofamac

• To undertake a market study for terracotta bricks

• To carry out a feasibility study for the project

KEY IMPACTS

• Production of a construction material more adapted to local demand with a better energetic balance and entirely recyclable items

• Enhance local production, in substitution to foreign imports

• Lower consumer prices