We stand with Africa’s innovators.

AU-Startups exists to expand the conditions under which African innovators can build globally competitive companies. We do that by doing four things well: telling their stories, convening the ecosystem, producing evidence, and supporting access to capital.

We are independent. We take no equity. We accept grants and partnerships that are aligned with our mission — and are public about where our funding comes from.

We work in the open. Our journalism, research, and convenings are designed to compound — each piece of work expanding shared understanding of Africa’s innovation economy.

We work in coalitions. Ecosystem change is collective, so most of our programs are run with, not for, partner institutions — hubs, funders, universities, regulators, and founder communities.

We work with rigor. We publish our methods, share our data, and submit our programs to external review.

Africa’s innovators are not under-talented. They are under-resourced, under-reported, and under-represented in the rooms where the rules of the digital economy are written. Our work is aimed squarely at those three gaps.