Digital Business Invest and CozBaz & Co Introduce Participatory Financing in Côte d’Ivoire

Digital business invest (DBI), a company based in Estonia and specializing in the provision of digital solutions, digital transformation, and alternative financing of innovation in emerging countries, and CozBaz & Co, an Ivorian company specializing in intermediation and strategic consulting, signed on Tuesday, December 21st in Abidjan, a three-year partnership for the financing of innovation in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond, in Africa.

Dr. Armand Obou, manager of Finnova, and DBI’s CEO, and the managing partner of CozBaz & Co, Alfred Boga Zebi, initialed the documents on which this partnership is based, which will consist in raising resources on the participatory financing market (from which Africa does not really benefit) to support innovative project holders on the African continent.

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DBI will enable startups to raise funds from small investors

Through its subsidiary FinnovA (Funding innovative Africa), a participatory finance service delivery platform specifically dedicated to digital innovation in Africa, DBI enables start-ups and innovative companies on the continent to connect and raise funds from a variety of small investors, including the African diaspora and regular participatory finance investors around the world.

The local partner, CozBaz & co, will be in charge of setting up an innovation gas pedal, which will collect promising projects and help the promoters to get the necessary funds disbursed, in exchange for a symbolic equity stake from FinnovA and its local partner (which varies between 15% and 30%) in the project. “It is DBI that guarantees to crownfounders that you are trusted. This is what allows us to propose the project on the platform. You keep control of your project and your company, but Finnova and CozBaz & co accompany you in the disbursement and ensure the financial management of your project until the return on investment. Disbursements are made progressively,” said Dr. Armand Gérard Obou, who added that the maximum that can be granted to a project is $17,000 (€15,000).

For his part, Alfred Zebi explained that his structure accompanies SMEs. It does incubation and accompanies (in terms of advice, strategy and access to funding) SMEs that really impact the business and have a social vocation. “We are social entrepreneurs aware that Africa can only develop through a network of SMEs,” he said. He revealed that this partnership is something impactful that will materialize. It will invest at least one billion dollars in Côte d’Ivoire over the next few years and create more than 300,000 jobs locally. Better still, to date, four projects have already been taken on by CozBaz & co.

The General Manager of DBI and co-founder of FinnovA, Laurence Cost, speaking by videoconference from Estonia where the company is based, said that through this partnership, the company guarantees the traceability and proper use of funds invested. This is likely to curb the caution, even the reluctance of European investors to commit to projects to be financed on the African continent. And CozBaz & co – which has a real knowledge of the field and expertise in the field of SME support – will contribute to a good analysis of the needs of young entrepreneurs.

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(Featured image by martaposemuckel via Pixabay)

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First published in MinutesEco, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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