Many regional programmes fail for the same reason: they are designed at regional scale from the outset, before any single country has proven the model works. Coordination difficulties then stack on top of an unvalidated concept.
STARTUP'ELLE's trajectory illustrates the opposite approach.
Two national editions before any expansion
Launched in Mali in 2020, the programme was first tested through two national editions. The 2021 edition brought together ten finalists from ten different sectors and 397 participants out of 500 invitations issued, under extensive national media coverage.
These two editions made it possible to establish what worked — the pitch-competition format, institutional mobilisation, post-selection support — and what needed strengthening before any expansion.
The consortium: the precondition for regional scale
In 2026, STARTUP'ELLE goes regional with the AES edition, bringing together Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in consortium with CIPMEN and La Fabrique. This choice is not cosmetic: a regional programme requires a genuine operational presence in each country, something only an established local organisation can provide.
The eight-stage journey — call for applications, selection, national Demo Days, regional bootcamp, mentorship, investment readiness, regional Demo Day, alumnae network — precisely articulates the two levels: national review by local partners, shared milestones at regional scale.
Documentation is what makes a model transferable
Between the national and regional editions, the bulk of the work was not adding countries: it was documenting the model precisely enough for a partner organisation to run it without having watched us do it first. That same logic guides our ambition to expand across wider West Africa.