Grace Ashiru
Marking a new strategic direction, Open Startup has introduced The Science Road to strengthen African science, deep tech, and research driven innovation as lab based ventures advance into globally competitive industries. The initiative builds on the pan African organisation’s decade long commitment to supporting entrepreneurs and innovation ecosystems across the continent.
Announced in Tunis on June 29, 2026, the initiative coincides with the 10th anniversary of Open Startup, which was founded in Tunisia in 2016. The organisation said the launch represents its evolution from a university entrepreneurship competition into a pan African platform focused on investment readiness and ecosystem development, building on a decade of impact that has supported more than 3,000 founders and over 1,000 startups across more than 20 African countries.
Bringing its various programmes together under a unified acceleration platform, The Science Road positions Open Startup as a connector between African scientists, founders, markets, partners, and capital. Under this new strategic direction, the organisation will place greater emphasis on ventures advancing innovations in health, climate, artificial intelligence, and related technologies.
Alongside the relaunch, Open Startup has unveiled Openers First, a dedicated investment arm created to provide early stage funding for selected ventures emerging from its platform. Designed to complement the organisation’s investment readiness programmes, the initiative aims to help promising startups close the funding gap between the pre seed and seed stages while supporting Open Startup’s long term sustainability.
Houda Ghozzi, Founder and CEO of Open Startup, said the organisation has spent the past decade helping entrepreneurs build ventures and access new opportunities. She noted that as Open Startup enters its second decade, it does so with greater maturity, an expanded presence across the continent, and renewed ambition. Ghozzi added that The Science Road has the potential to connect Africa’s innovators with the global ecosystem, creating new opportunities for collaboration, investment, and scientific progress while fostering a new relationship between Africa and the world built on innovation, contribution, and shared prosperity.
According to the organisation, The Science Road is intended to support an underserved segment of Africa’s innovation ecosystem. It explained that science and deep tech ventures often need specialised support, closer collaboration with universities and industry, extended development timelines, and access to early stage funding before they can achieve commercial viability.
With its new structure in place, Open Startup will deliver its programmes through two core pathways. The first is designed to help pre seed innovators transform research and breakthrough ideas into investment ready ventures, while the second will support seed stage startups as they scale technologies addressing major market needs and societal challenges.
Strengthening its ecosystem partnerships from Tunis to South Africa, Open Startup is expanding collaborations with organisations including CERI, Stellenbosch University, and LaunchLab. The organisation said these partnerships are designed to help research driven founders move scientific innovations beyond the laboratory and into markets, investment opportunities, and real world adoption.
Over the last decade, Open Startup has cultivated a network of more than 500 mentors, advisors, and experts, while training over 300 coaches and connecting founders with investors, corporations, universities, and policymakers across Africa and beyond. Its initiatives have been supported by a broad coalition of partners, including KfW AfricaGrow, AfricInvest, the United States Department of State, the European Union, Digital Africa, Bpifrance, the Drosos Foundation, the Steve Madden Foundation, and Sanofi Ventures, alongside academic institutions such as Columbia University, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan, and MIT Africa.
As Africa’s innovation ecosystems continue to mature, Open Startup believes research driven ventures will require more specialised support to achieve commercial viability and become investment ready. Through The Science Road, the organisation aims to help more African ventures progress from scientific discovery to company building, sustainable growth, and long term value creation.
