MENA Region Vibe Check + Lessons from Startup Tunisia

The African Pre-seed Podcast

🎙️ This month's episode takes us to Tunisia, speaking to Mariem Sellami, a founder and former program manager at Startup Tunisia to understand what it’s like running a venture in Tunisia. 🇹🇳

Like most nascent tech ecosystems, the government plays an important role in the Tunisian ecosystem, with legal frameworks like the Startup Act—passed in 2019—helping founders get indirect funding and promoting the ecosystem on a regional and international level.

There are quite a few interesting things about the Tunisian ecosystem:

• It has a strong technical skill base because tech and digital literacy skills are a key focus for the country.
• As a result, 47% of founders are engineers, while 13% hold PhDs in various disciplines. Its proximity to Europe has also been useful for exposing the country’s technical talent to gain experience and skills beyond its ecosystem.
• Remember InstaDeep, the Tunisian startup acquired for $549 million? Its success is spurring a new class of dreamers with similar dreams of groundbreaking startups that make outsized impact.

💡 Top five insights unpacked in this episode:

• Making Tunisia a startup friendly nation [01:15]
• Tunisia's startup ecosystem developments over the last 10 years [08:34]
• Leveraging international culture diversity [09:06]
• Factors driving innovations within the Tunisian tech ecosystem [11:28]
• Addressing some oversimplifications and stigmas about entrepreneurship [15:20]

CONNECT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA:

• Connect with Mariem Sellami on LinkedIn

Tell us...

• What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode?
• What topic would you like for us to feature on a future podcast?

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