Tunisia’s State Startup Fund Looks Beyond Capital City Tech Elites

Tunisia’s state-backed startup financing apparatus is taking a deliberate turn away from the capital and coastal hubs, launching a regional roadshow to showcase two national financing instruments and push capital into the country’s interior. The “Innovative Startups and SMEs” project—financed by the World Bank and implemented by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) in partnership with Smart Capital—will run its second edition from late September through 23 October with stops in Le Kef, Monastir, Gafsa and Zarzis. The move comes as startups captured just 1.8% of total invested capital in 2024 and as much as 80.5% of fundraising remains centralised in Greater Tunis.

“Financial desert,” a phrase used by the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies (ITES), encapsulates the regional imbalance: ITES found that 67% of bank branches are located along the coast, primarily in Greater Tunis and the Centre-East, leaving interior regions under-served.

Two financing mechanisms on show

At each roadshow stop organisers will explain two complementary financing mechanisms. ANAVA is a fund-of-funds that channels capital indirectly through child funds investing in startups across Tunisia, Africa and the Middle East. InnovaTech offers direct financing targeted at innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.

ANAVA is presented as the first fund of funds in Tunisia and on the African continent to be denominated in euros. It has a target size of €100 million and has already secured a first closing of €60 million: €40 million subscribed by the CDC through a World Bank loan and €20 million from German development bank KfW. The fund is managed by Smart Capital, which is mandated by the Tunisian state to deploy the national Startup Tunisia programme.

• ANAVA has committed €45 million across ten venture capital child funds so far, with a target of investing in at least 13.
• Seven of the child funds focus exclusively on Tunisia; three operate as pan-African vehicles.
• The fund follows a sector- and stage-agnostic approach to diversify risk and scale performance.

Who is deploying the capital

Among the vehicles already deploying ANAVA’s capital is 216 Capital Ventures, a Tunis-based firm focused on early-stage technology startups. Founded in 2021 by Dhekra Khelifi—noted as the first female general partner at a Tunisian venture capital firm—216 Capital has invested in companies including eSteps, Proxalys and Logidoo. The source material also references MEDIN Fund Management, which manages the TITAN SEED FUND as another part of the financing ecosystem.

Outlook

Organisers frame the roadshow as a practical step to correct long-standing geographic imbalances in Tunisia’s financial and startup landscape. By bringing ANAVA and InnovaTech’s terms and application pathways directly to cities such as Le Kef and Gafsa, the project aims to broaden access to the CDC- and World Bank-backed capital parked behind the national Startup Tunisia programme. Whether the initiative will materially shift the concentration that sees 80.5% of fundraising centred in Greater Tunis will depend on follow-through from the child funds and on local deal flow maturing fast enough to attract those investments.