Open Startup, the pan-African organisation that has spent the past decade supporting entrepreneurs and innovation ecosystems across the continent, has launched The Science Road, a new strategic direction aimed at strengthening African science, deep tech and research-led innovation as these ventures move from the lab into globally competitive industries.
The announcement, made in Tunis on June 29, 2026, coincides with Open Startup’s 10-year anniversary since its founding in Tunisia in 2016. The organisation says the new direction marks an evolution from a university entrepreneurship competition into a pan-African investment-readiness and ecosystem-building platform, built on a decade of work that has supported more than 3,000 founders and over 1,000 startups across more than 20 African countries.
The Science Road consolidates Open Startup’s various programmes under a single acceleration platform, positioning the organisation as a bridge between African founders, scientists, markets, partners and capital. The new direction will focus specifically on ventures developing solutions in health, climate, artificial intelligence and adjacent technologies.
As part of the relaunch, Open Startup is introducing Openers First, a new investment arm that will provide early-stage financing to selected ventures emerging from the platform. The investment vehicle is designed to complement the organisation’s existing investment-readiness work, helping promising startups bridge the funding gap between pre-seed and seed-stage growth while contributing to Open Startup’s long-term sustainability.
“For ten years, Open Startup has worked to help entrepreneurs build ventures and access opportunities,” said Houda Ghozzi, Founder and CEO of Open Startup. “As we enter our second decade, we do so with greater maturity, a broader continental footprint, and a renewed ambition. We believe the Science Road can become a runway connecting Africa’s innovators to the world—unlocking new opportunities for collaboration, investment, and scientific advancement, while helping build a new narrative between Africa and the world: one defined by contribution, innovation, and shared prosperity.”
The organisation says The Science Road is designed to address a segment of Africa’s innovation economy that remains underserved. Science and deep tech ventures, it notes, typically require specialist support, stronger links with universities and industry, longer development timelines and early capital before reaching commercial viability.
Under the new structure, Open Startup will organise its offering around two core pathways: one supporting pre-seed innovators as they translate research and breakthrough ideas into investable ventures, and a second supporting seed-stage startups scaling technologies aimed at major market and societal challenges.
The relaunch will also be anchored by deeper ecosystem partnerships spanning from Tunis to South Africa. Open Startup says it is strengthening its collaboration with partners including CERI, Stellenbosch University and LaunchLab to help research-led founders move science out of the lab and closer to markets, investment and real-world adoption.
Over the past decade, Open Startup has built a community of more than 500 mentors, advisors and experts and trained over 300 coaches, while connecting founders to investors, corporations, universities and policymakers across Africa and internationally. Its work has been backed by a network 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, as well as academic partners such as Columbia University, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan and MIT Africa.
Open Startup says that as African innovation ecosystems continue to mature, research-led ventures will need more targeted support to become commercially viable and investment-ready, and that The Science Road is intended to help more African ventures move from discovery to company-building, growth and long-term value creation.
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