Katapult Collaborates With Tony Blair Institute to Support African Startups

Katapult, an investment company focused on highly scalable impact tech startups, and The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) have formed a partnership to support impact-tech startups in Africa.

The partnership aims to support the best impact tech entrepreneurs across Africa by strengthening the scaling ecosystem for startups and funnelling global and regional capital towards impact investments.

The partners’ first project together is an impact tech accelerator project in Kigali, Rwanda, funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), a directorate under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).

The project will support tech startups in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa as well as an investor network through accelerator and investor train- ing programmes, and invest in the best startups.

TBI’s Executive Director for Africa Rishon Chimboza said: “I am delighted that TBI is partnering with Katapult to support Rwanda’s ag-tech startups, and to build an investor network to help these businesses thrive and grow.

“Scalable businesses can play a vital role in Africa’s economic future, and given the right support, with public and private sectors working together, they can grow rapidly.

“We hope this project will help create new jobs, drive economic development and provide capital for new and innovative solutions for food security in Rwanda and the wider region.”

Tharald Nustad, founder of Katapult said: “The timing for scalable tech solutions is now, and with fast growing urbanization, a tech savvy young population, we are ready to build the future of tech-business from Rwanda! We both share the belief that building rapidly scalable businesses in collaboration with both public and private parties is one of the best ways to solve the grand challenges the world is facing.”