A €108 million investment by the European Union (EU) and European Investment Bank (EIB) in Africa’s emerging businesses has succeeded in attracting an additional €400 million in capital, underscoring the growing push to use entrepreneurship as a major engine of job creation and economic transformation on the continent.
The investment, deployed through the Boost Africa initiative, has supported early-stage businesses and venture capital funds while helping to build an ecosystem capable of taking promising African companies from startup to regional expansion.
The development was disclosed in Abuja on Wednesday by EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, during a media briefing ahead of the Boost Africa Impact Forum, themed, “Investing in Africa’s Next Generation of Entrepreneurs: From Investment to Impact.”
Mignot said the significance of the programme lay not simply in the money committed but in its ability to unlock much larger pools of capital and translate investment into businesses, employment and opportunities for Africa’s rapidly growing young population.
The initiative, he said, demonstrated how development finance could be used to reduce the risks associated with investing in young African businesses and encourage private investors to back entrepreneurs operating in markets where conventional financing remains difficult to obtain.
“For every single euro that was invested through Boost Africa, we were able to attract additional three euros through different investors,” EIB Country Relationship Manager for Nigeria, Moussa Nakoulima, said.
The leverage effect means that the €108 million deployed through the initiative has helped mobilise approximately €400 million in additional investment, significantly expanding the financial resources available to African entrepreneurs.
Beyond financing, the programme has been credited with supporting job creation, strengthening venture capital markets and helping African companies develop the capacity to expand beyond their domestic markets.
Nakoulima said Africa possessed a large pool of talented entrepreneurs capable of developing solutions to some of the continent’s most pressing problems, but warned that many promising businesses failed to reach scale because they could not secure capital at the earliest and riskiest stages of development.
He said the funding gap was particularly acute in sectors such as financial services, healthcare, digital technology and renewable energy, where innovative companies often required substantial investment before becoming commercially attractive to traditional lenders.
Boost Africa was established in 2016 by the EIB and African Development Bank, with backing from the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), specifically to address that challenge.
Rather than functioning as a conventional bank providing direct loans to individual businesses, the initiative channels investment through venture capital funds and financial intermediaries that identify and support high-potential startups and small businesses.
Nakoulima said the model was designed to make development finance catalytic rather than substitutive — using public and institutional capital to absorb some of the risks that private investors might otherwise avoid.
He said the programme combined three critical components: investment capital, technical assistance and ecosystem development.
The technical assistance component provides support in areas including accounting, legal structuring, market analysis, governance and business strategy, while ecosystem development connects entrepreneurs with incubators, accelerators, investors and other players capable of helping them scale.
The impact is already being seen in businesses operating across several African markets.
Investment Director at Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, Lavanya Anand, said the €110 million fund had invested in 15 Series A technology companies across Africa, with the EIB serving as one of its anchor investors.
She said companies supported through the ecosystem were operating across healthcare, financial services, logistics, e-commerce and education technology.
The fund’s portfolio, she disclosed, had created 7,600 direct jobs and 272,000 indirect jobs, while reaching more than 46 million people with improved financial services and training more than 13,000 students.
One of the companies cited was Turaco, a technology-driven insurance company that has provided coverage to more than two million previously uninsured people across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia.
Another beneficiary, OZE, received assistance in developing its banking partnership strategy, helping it establish relationships with financial institutions including Ecobank.
In Nigeria, the impact has also extended into the power sector.
Chief Strategy Officer of Beacon Power Services, Christine Adejorooluwa, said investment and technical assistance enabled the energy technology company to expand from serving one utility to 12 utilities across seven African countries.
She said the company’s technology helps electricity distribution companies improve visibility of their networks, reduce outages and limit energy losses and revenue leakages.
According to her, an independent study commissioned through Boost Africa found that BPS’s intervention at one utility prevented approximately 78,000 megawatt-hours of lost load.
At another utility, she said, the intervention contributed to a $191 million increase in revenue through measures including identifying new customers and reducing outage hours.
Adejorooluwa said the intervention demonstrated that the real value of development finance could be measured by what happens after the investment — stronger businesses, more reliable infrastructure, increased revenues and improved livelihoods.
“For me, that is what investment to impact really looks like,” she said.
For Nigeria, Mignot said the opportunity was particularly significant because of the country’s large youthful population and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“Nigeria is one of Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems, and we believe that supporting innovation and enterprise is essential for sustainable economic growth and job creation,” he said.
He said the EU’s approach under its Global Gateway strategy was to work with member states, development banks and private-sector partners as “Team Europe” to create investment partnerships capable of producing sustainable economic opportunities.
The initiative also seeks to produce businesses capable of crossing national borders and developing into African companies with regional and continental reach.
Nkoulima said the ultimate goal was to see entrepreneurs transform successful local ideas into businesses operating across multiple African markets.
“When an entrepreneur in Lagos develops a solution that can be subsequently operating in Ghana, in Côte d’Ivoire, in South Africa, in Kenya, we are beginning to see the real creation, value creation, creation of genuine Pan-African champions,” he said.
With Africa facing a persistent youth employment challenge and a large financing gap for small and emerging businesses, the EU-EIB-backed model highlights the potential of targeted development capital to attract private investment while helping African entrepreneurs turn innovation into scalable businesses and jobs.
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