Host: Some of the fastest-growing economies in Africa are Francophone: Senegal, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire. But when it comes to start-up funding, most American investment still goes to Anglophone countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and my own South Africa. So what are we missing? Why should we be investing in Francophone Africa?
Lina: Like a funny story is, for example, so Côte d’Ivoire hosted the AFCON a couple of years ago. And that brought a lot of people from different parts of the continent to Côte d’Ivoire. And I remember there was a lot of things around it on Twitter. The Nigerians were like, wait a minute, what is this country with good roads and electricity and water… without realizing that it is a bit more normal, if you will, to have continuous water and electricity in some of the Francophone countries compared to Nigeria, for example. Sorry, they’re getting stray bullets!
Host: Francophone Africa is set to be the next investment hotspot. The region includes more than 20 countries and over 430 million people – many of them are very young! To understand the investment opportunities in the region better, we spoke to Lina Kacyem, an investment manager at Launch Africa Ventures, a venture capital firm backing African start-ups. She also founded an angel investment network, putting her own money alongside other backers, in early-stage African companies. Originally from Cameroon, she spent nearly two decades in the United States before returning to Abidjan—where she quickly spotted a gap.
Lina: I spent about 20 years in the US before relocating to the continent. I realized that people even on the continent had a hard time really getting an understanding of what the Francophone markets are about, right?
The markets that most people are familiar with are what are called the big four: And the particular thing with the big four is that individually they are pretty big markets – Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt – from the size of the country, the size of the population. But with Francophone countries, most of them are quite small in size and in population”
Host: So what are the other differences between Anglophone and Francophone countries and where does that difference come from?
Lina: Historically, it was thought the main difference was the language, which is why a lot of them, let’s even American investor were thinking, I’m not going to go to a country where I don’t speak the the language.
And, now I hope more of them are realizing that English is a business language. So if you come to do business, you will be able to find opportunities and people to interact with.
The main difference is honestly mostly historical, right? It’s come from a history of colonization. Who was your main colonizer? And that’s where the language and sort of some of the cultural and certain habits come from. So earlier I was talking about regulation, right? Common law versus civil law, ah pragmatism versus process oriented, um direct communication versus a more hierarchical, formal type of communication.
What else would I say? I would also say even the connection with the diaspora or the countries, right? Europe is closer; France is much closer with the former colonies than, for example, the UK, which means for the American investors that when they land here, they will be more familiar with some of the business behaviors of the Anglophone countries.
It goes from silly things like calling someone by their first name versus Mr. and Mrs., you know, to how do you do ‘the ask’, right? 20 years in the US, I came back being like, I can just directly ask some, you know, something to someone without going through sort of different mechanisms… and that doesn’t work, you know. And also the face-to-face, right?
In Anglophone countries, their diaspora, their students who left went to the UK or went to the US. A good portion went to the US. So they got used to even doing business like this virtually.
On the Francophone side, most of the people when they leave when they leave for school or for you know work, they go to France, still face to face. So you do see that a lot in the business today. If I haven’t met you in person, there’s a difficulty in trusting you. So even though I’m based, between Abidjan and New York, over this specific past year, for example, I spent more time in Abidjan, I spent more time going to Dakar. Lome and so on, just so that I can meet people face to face. Cause that’s how the base for trust is established.
Host: And do you think the mindset – the Francophone mindset – is changing?
Lina: Now you have this younger generation that is also entering the workforce and the Anglophone way of doing things, right? Whether it’s Hollywood and so on or business, it’s much closer to them. And it’s in many ways, it’s an easier, you know, culture, the the Anglo-Saxon, Anglophone, Anglophone, where you call people by their first name, you directly ask what you’re looking for. There’s a sense of we’re doing business. So, how do you go with the win-win? There’s not as much hierarchy, so it makes people a bit more relaxed, so it’s easier to adapt. And also, like I say to a lot of people here, money is in English. That’s the main language that it speaks.
So even as you’re doing businesses with China, the Middle East and all of these places, at the end of the day, what is the language that you’re going to speak with them? It’s English. So because of that, there is a lot of changes in behavior, especially business behavior.
And I would also like to add that there’s a sense of not losing the African identity, right? So different countries on the Francophone side have have also gone about about it differently in trying to make sure they keep their culture because historically, whether it was through colonization, post-colonization, sort of the UK or Anglo-Saxon way was that you can keep your culture even if we dominate.
France is much more about assimilation. You have to assimilate. So over the years, whether it’s with my generation or the younger generation, you sort of see this pushback on having to assimilate.
Right. You see in the way people dress and how people speak and how they behave. There’s a bigger sense of I want to own my culture or whatever that culture is. And the English Anglophone system tends to be more open to that and maybe credit to some of the Anglophone African countries who also were much determined, I would say, to expose their culture.
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Host: And so if you were speaking to an investor, which you do as part of your job, and specifically an American investor, why would you tell them to invest in Francophone Africa?
Lina: I would say on one end, numbers don’t lie. Look at growth, look at infrastructure, right? So if I take the country in which I’m in, Cote d’Ivoire, there’s been clear progress in terms of infrastructure.
These countries are also a making clear effort in not being solely dependent on raw material. Right. also have to, there’s also a differentiation between more like Northern Francophone Africa, like Morocco and Tunisia versus West versus Central. So I would say look at the numbers because there is progress.
The other piece I would say is opportunities, right? The biggest risk also brings back the biggest return. You just have to make sure that you align yourself with more local, people who know locally what is going on and are more familiar.
Africa has been called the last frontier. Within that last frontier, you have countries, francophone countries, where there’s so many things to be done.
So if you align with the right people, there are a lot of opportunities for gains.
One of the worries is usually currency stability.
The good news is most Francophone African countries have a stable currency, right? The CFA, you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, it’s pegged to the Euros.
There’s also sometimes concerns around political stability. Outside of a couple I know that make the news,in general, if you look over the last 10 to 20 years, it’s been more peaceful than what is actually being placed in terms of perception.
So stable currency, stability, growth, infrastructure, and I would add the desire by a lot of different government infrastructure and regulators to have a variety of investment partners.
Host: Let’s turn that question around: what do Africans like about the American way of doing things?
Lina: The American mindset of being transparent, of being pragmatic, that is also something that more and more is being embraced in Francophone Africa. It’s like, oh, it’s not just the better way of doing it, it makes it easier, right?
The other piece of the American mindset that will be appealing is this sense of lesser hierarchy, lesser being validated with necessarily the school or whatever you you did, right? Because Americans are used to social mobility.
It might be less today, but the idea of social mobility is part of the American mindset, which is not necessarily part of the Francophone mindset, right? There’s hierarchy, there’s aristocrats and all of that. So I think it’s much more appealing to work with people who go, yeah, you can go from this to this, and I don’t care how old you are; it doesn’t have to be 10 years of experience before you get to do this. It’s a matter of: are you smart? Are you pragmatic? Are you bringing me back the result? So that mindset is also incredibly appealing to Francophone Africans.
Host: Many global funds are now developing strategies focused on Francophone Africa, while entrepreneurs across the region are increasingly looking to the United States for their next round of funding. Just as Nigeria and East Africa were once seen as new frontiers, investors are now viewing Francophone Africa as the next limitless growth opportunity
