Supporting entrepreneurship in Libya: STREAM organises its first “Investor Day”
In Libya, where the private sector only accounts for a very small proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), access to financing is one of the main challenges for start-ups and entrepreneurs. With British financing and technical assistance from the public agency Expertise France and the company Libyana, the STREAM incubator is assisting entrepreneurs – particularly young people and women – and training them to give them the skills required to launch and develop their activity.
Building a network of entrepreneurs and investors
The event on 1 September gave STREAM members the opportunity to meet potential investors: experienced entrepreneurs, business leaders, bankers… The “Streamers” were able to pitch their business model to show the profitability and chances of success of their respective companies.
Thirty of the investors participating, half from Libya’s diaspora, expressed their interest in investing in the start-ups. The success of this event is therefore the first step towards the creation of an “Investors’ Club” in Libya. STREAM will support its structuring in order to create a network likely to invest in promising start-ups.
A space dedicated to entrepreneurs in Tripoli
STREAM is a project financed by the UK Government and implemented by Expertise France. It has set up an incubator, accelerator and fab-lab in Tripoli to support innovative entrepreneurship in Libya.
The “STREAM” co-working space was officially opened in November 2019. The incubator, accelerator and fab-lab in this space allow entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas in a conducive environment in an area of over 1,000 m²: fully-equipped offices, high-quality services, collective brainstorming spaces…
Supporting innovative entrepreneurship in Libya
The STREAM team trains and coaches entrepreneurs, in partnership with Libyana, a major Libyan mobile phone company. It also organises regular meetings with other economic operators – this investor day is one of them – to promote their integration into economic life.
Since it was set up, STREAM has already helped about a hundred entrepreneurs set up their company and build their development, business management and networking capacities via a 6-week summer camp in Tunis, two 5-month incubation programmes and three 3-month acceleration programmes. 30 start-ups are currently in the incubation phase and 10 are in the acceleration phase. For example, participants in the incubation programme set up by STREAM are developing innovative projects in the fields of telemedecine, vertical agriculture, digital technologies, computer programming…
STREAM is one of the many projects implemented by Expertise France in Libya to support entrepreneurship. With financing from the European Union and United Kingdom, the agency and its partners help structure the entrepreneurship ecosystem through projects with complementary focuses:
• Improving the business environment (simplification of administrative formalities, strengthening Chambers of Commerce…),
• Supporting economic initiative (training and coaching entrepreneurs, organising competitions…),
• Facilitating access to financing (including the launch of the first microfinance institution, Namaa Tamweel).
Find out more: https://www.expertisefrance.fr/en/libye
Find out more about the project: www.streamers.ly
Follow STREAM on Twitter: @Joinstream1