French telecommunications company Orange has launched CIPMEN, a startup incubator in the Sub-Saharan country of Niger.
The move follows the launch of two previous Orange backed incubators on the African continent, the Senegal-based CITC in 2011, and the Mauritania-based Ebene Accelerator in 2013.
CIPMEN will focus on assisting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from their launch phase until they reach a level of maturity where they can turn enough profit to sustain operations in the long term.
According to Orange, 85% of Sub-Saharan SMEs fail within the first 2 years of inception, but 80% of Sub-Saharan SMEs backed by incubators are still operational 5 years onwards.