🌍 On May 25 we celebrated “Africa Day”, the annual commemoration of the foundation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.

So what’s been good on this Africa month?

African creatives shone on various stages from the #CannesFilmFestival in France, to the White House during President Ruto’s US visit, to the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali.

Nigerian artists continue to break records on Spotify, while Kenya’s fashion and textile industry surprises with its unexpected growth. Plus, a new pilot initiative by Proparco aims to encourage private investment in the Creative sector.

👇Read on for all details on those stories and more

#AfricanCreativeIndustries #Investment

FILM

🎬🌍 The 77th Cannes Film Festival recently wrapped up.

The presence of African film at the Cannes Film Festival has grown over the past decade, and 2023 was a historic year for African representation in Cannes, with 15 titles showcased. Two films from the continent competed for the Palme d’Or: a Tunisian docu-fiction Les Filles d’Olfa (Four Daughters), and a Senegalese film Banel and Adama.

This year, while no African films made it to the main competition, African (and especially North African) cinema still made its mark across various categories:

✨ Mo Harawe’s (Sudan) debut feature, 'The Village Next to Paradise', and Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni’s 'On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”, both premiered in the Un Certain Regard category.

✨ The Director’s Fortnight lineup featured 'Everybody Loves Touda' by Moroccan producer Nabil Ayouch and 'East of Noon' by Egyptian filmmaker Noora Elkoussy.

✨ Cannes’ International Critics Week highlighted Egypt’s 'Rafaat Einy ll Sama' (The Brink of Madness) by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, Moroccan filmmaker Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s 'La Mer Au Loin' (Across the Sea), and 'Animale' by Algerian producer Emma Benestan.

🎥 The festival also celebrated African talent on the jury panels, with Belgian-Congolese singer and filmmaker Baloji, Rwandan actress Eliane Umuhire, and filmmakers Asmae El-Moudir and Maïmouna Doucouré serving as jury members in various categories.

ANIMATION

The long-awaited Nigerian mythology animation series IYANU is one step closer to becoming reality.

🎭Warner Bros Discovery’s Cartoon Network and Max have announced the all-Nigerian cast for the series, which is slated for release in the US on Cartoon Network and Max in 2025.

A Lion Forge Entertainment production, IYANU is adapted from the Dark Horse Dark Horse Comics/YouNeek Studios’ graphic novel series “Iyanu: Child of Wonder” by Roye Okupe.

🌍🌀The story is set in the magical kingdom of Yorubaland and follows Iyanu, a teenage orphan who discovers she has divine powers. Along with friends Biyi and Toye, she goes on a journey to uncover the truth about the evil threatening her homeland and her ultimate destiny, to save her people.

🗣️ Alongside voiceover veteran Serah Johnson, who is leading the cast as Iyanu, are some recognizable Nollywood faces (or in this case, voices): actress Adesua Etomi-Wellington as Olori, Blossom Chukwujekwu, set to play Toye’s father Kanfo, and Shaffy Bello who will voice Emi – The One Mother.

YouNeek Studios’ path to success is one of steadfastness, as it usually is the case in the creative industries.

🦸🏾 Roye Okupe started building YouNeek and its YouNiverse of interconnected African superheroes stories back in 2012.

🐎 In 2021, Dark Horse Comics, one of the world’s leading entertainment publishers, signed a deal with YouNeek to publish all 10 of YouNeek’s previously self-published graphic novels.

Around the same time, Okupe received seed investment from Erica Motley Dupuis of Impact X Capital through its Impact X Studios division, whose goal is to fund, develop and package international - including African - content focused on diversity and inclusion. Motley Dupuis, an experienced former film executive, quickly facilitated the production deal with Lion Forge.

🔮 At the time, Motley Dupuis’ investment in YouNeek was bold, ground-breaking and a real bet on the uncertain future of African animation. It looks like it’s now paying off.

MUSIC

📊 For the second consecutive year, Spotify has published revenue data for Nigerian and South African artists as part of its Loud & Clear initiative, which aims to provide unprecedented transparency in streaming economics.

Key 2023 highlights:

• Royalties from Spotify to Nigerian artists exceeded N25B (USD18M), more than doubling the amount from 2022. Over half of these royalties were generated by independent artists or labels.

• Royalties from Spotify to South African artists reached nearly 256M ZAR  (USD 13.6M), 240% increase since 2019 and over 500% since 2017.

• The number of South African artists earning over 100,000 ZAR (USD 5,300) in royalties has increased more than 5x since 2018.

💰 Globally, Spotify returns about two-thirds of every dollar it makes from music back to the industry, setting a record last year with the highest annual payment from any single retailer at $9 billion.

🎶 Promoting African talent to its 615M users worldwide, Spotify featured over 1,400 Nigerian and 2,800 South African artists in its editorial playlists in 2023.

🎧 These editorial playlists are key to enabling discoveries: Nigerian artists reached first-time listeners over 950M times, while South African artists did so over 735M times.

📈 According to the latest IFPI report, Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest-growing region for music industry revenue, surpassing 20% growth (24.7%).

🎶 Nigerian singer Tekno’s Cartel Music label and Mr. Eazi’s emPawa Africa have entered into a joint venture, with Tekno also joining emPawa Africa as an investor and partner.

📢 Mr. Eazi announced, "This phase will see us partnering with African artists at different stages of their career who want to maintain financial and creative freedom, yet move from talent for hire to equity participation. It’s a first-of-its-kind deal for Afrobeats."

🔗 Through this partnership, the Cartel Music imprint will release music through emPawa Africa. Tekno, whom Billie Eilish once named her “favorite artist” will become an investor in emPawa during its next capital call round.

🌍 Since its inception in 2018, emPawa Africa has been offering marketing, distribution, publishing, label, and management services, working with artists like Joeboy, Major League Djz, Fave, King Promise, and Minz.

FASHION & TEXTILE

👗 Kenya’s Vivo Fashion Group's opened its first store in the US in Atlanta, Georgia.

Founded 13 years ago by Wandia Gichuru, Vivo has grown to become one of the largest fashion brands in East Africa.

📈🚀 With all products designed and manufactured in Kenya, Vivo currently operates an impressive 25 stores across East Africa and employs over 380 people.

Vivo’s US store opening was attended by Kenya’s President Ruto, himself on a historic US tour.

President Ruto then visited the Tyler Perry Studios but was stood up by Perry who “couldn’t make it” and sent Steve Harvey as consolation prize. But that’s another story.

👔 The Vivo store opening is the perfect follow up to the news, released earlier this month, that Kenya had now become the largest textile and apparel exporter to the United States in Africa.

🏭 The recent launch in the country of a new $2 million apparel brand identification and packaging plant by Nexgen, supported by a $750,000 grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), is a testament to Kenya’s growing role in the global garment value chain.

Nexgen Packaging's choice of Kenya as its Africa headquarters signifies a strategic move to enhance capabilities and strengthen garment manufacturing processes in the region.

♻️In 2000, Kenya was among the first countries to qualify for trade preferences under AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act), a program that exempts the goods of some sub-Saharan African countries from duty costs in the US.

After two decades, the results of the policy are clear:

🚀 AGOA exports from Kenya have experienced a 12-fold increase, reaching $4.5 million per month in 2022, according to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

The sector has also experienced steady growth in capital investment, with a 7.2% increase from 2018 to 2022, during which 36 firms invested approximately $217 million, leading to the creation of 66,260 jobs and to more than $476 million in export value.

The textile and garment sector now accounts for 7% of Kenya’s total exports.

🏀🌍 Across the continent, the BAL has announced a new collaboration to produce licensed merchandise with Cacao, a label under the luxury fashion house Chocolate Clothes Global.

Kwaku Bediako, the designer behind Cacao, launched his brand in 2013 and officially established Chocolate Clothes Global in 2018. The brand won multiple awards and established partnerships with renowned luxury brands like Louis Vuitton.

🌟But Bediako’s most precious skill has been his ability to foster connections within the African diaspora, collaborating with notable figures such as Idris Elba or Boris Kodjoe.

The collaboration between BAL and Cacao arrives as the league seeks to diversify revenue streams, mirroring strategies employed by the NBA and other global sports leagues.

👕The licensed merchandise market has seen significant growth, estimated at USD 35 billion in 2023 and projected to surpass USD 50 billion by 2030. With rising interest in African fashion, the BAL x Cacao collaboration sets a precedent for sports brands to engage with African fashion labels.

😎✨Moulaye Taboure from ANKA and Laureen Kouassi-Olsson from Birimian Ventures are two superstars of the African fashion business space.

🎙️Moulaye invited Laureen to be a guest on his podcast. I recommend you watch the full video - it is simply a masterclass in African Creative Industries financing.

Among many insights, Laureen and Moulaye emphasize the importance of revenue, margin and growth for brands seeking financing, and the need for transparency in financial discussions.

💡They also provide lots of concrete advice for emerging African fashion brands.

Creative Industries financing is a business. “There is no free money,” they agreed.

INVESTMENT

🚀 This month, French DFI Proparco launched CREA Fund, its new program to encourage private investment in the Creative Industries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.

CREA Fund is part of the European Union’s CreatiFI flagship initiative for culture, under its #GlobalGateway strategy.

Endowed by the EU with a $7 million budget, CREA Fund will boost access to finance for Creative sector companies by:

1️⃣ Providing an attractive guarantee to funds that are clients of Proparco, to encourage them to make more investments in Creative companies by taking on some of the perceived risk

2️⃣ Offering Technical Assistance 👷🏾 to funds, banks, but also to their prospect or portfolio companies, to clear any hurdle to investment they might encounter (such as lack of investment readiness on the part of companies or lack of sector expertise on the part of the financier, for example)

The Technical Assistance component will be managed and delivered by my company Restless Global and our long-time partners PwC Nigeria.

🌐One of the key requests we received from investors was for access to qualified deal flow - so we organized a speed networking session to connect 20 top Creative sector companies with 10+ funds and banks.

💫 Another request was for more visibility on what success looks like in the African Creative Industries - so we’ll be releasing a series of case studies on successful African creative companies in the next few months.

Stay tuned.

AT THE TABLE

🎉This year, the Creative Industries made their grand debut at the Africa CEO Forum.

💼🌍 The Africa CEO Forum is the continent's premier gathering for Africa's top executives, global investors, and government leaders.

Every year, it brings together 2,000 participants from over 70 countries, 1,000 CEOs, +75 Heads of State and Ministers, 100 leaders of development finance institutions, and more than 200 journalists.

🗣️ All these esteemed individuals normally come to the CEO Forum to discuss business trends and opportunities in sectors such as Finance, Agriculture, Infrastructure, Energy, or Health.

But this year, the Creative Industries finally got a seat at the big boys (and girls) table, and more specifically at a strategic round table on how to "Leverage Africa’s Creative Industries to Unleash Economic Growth", which I had the pleasure to moderate.

🍽️ This echoed the tongue-in-cheek theme of the Forum this year: “At the Table or On the Menu? Shaping a New Future for Africa.”

Key Creative leaders from across the continent responded to the invitation by IFC to come discuss how to Leverage Africa’s Creative Industries to Unleash Economic Growth around 3 key points:

1️⃣ How can Creativity be turned into businesses?

2️⃣ How can digitalization help unleash the potential of the Creative sector?

3️⃣ What type of pan African partnerships can help plug value chain gaps?

😎 🤙Needless to say, the speakers understood the assignment.

In a room packed with business and government leaders, they gave a masterclass on the state of the Creative Industries today, and passionately outlined the opportunities of the sector:

✨ IFC’s Mohamed Gouled, Honorable Minister of Youth and Arts Dr Abdallah Utumatwhishima, and top Rwandan creative leader Carole Karemera kick-started the session with inspirational statements, reminding us that the impact of the Creative Industries go beyond economic growth to uplift societies as a whole.

📈 Success Stories: Jean-Michel Koenig of Triggerfish Animation Studios and Moses Babatope of FilmHouse shared their journeys in transforming Creativity into sustainable, profitable businesses.

🎭Phillip Karanja of Phil-IT Productions gave us insights about how he navigated his own transition from actor to creative entrepreneur.

💰 Challenges: George Gachara from HEVA Fund discussed barriers such as business readiness and access to finance, and explained why traditional investors need to adapt their tools to service the Creative sector.

📱Digitalization: Olivier Laouchez (Trace Group), Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy (Spotify), talked about the role of digital tools in amplifying creative reach, generating revenue, and solving challenges such as distribution and rights management.

💻Wowzi’s Brian Mogeni, Magic Carpet’s Ferdinand Adimefe and Maliyo Games’ Hugo Obi enlightened the room about the potential of sectors like the Creator Economy, Animation and Gaming to create millions of jobs for the youth on the continent.

👔Partnerships: Fashion visionaries such as Reni Folawiyo (Alara), Maryse Mbonyumutwa (Pink Mango) and Aristide Loua (Kente Gentlemen) explored the importance of pan-African collaborations to enhance supply chains and market integration, both within the continent and between Africa and lucrative export markets.

🤝Africa in Colors’ Raoul Rugamba concluded by voicing the wish (shared by many participants) that gatherings like this one go beyond talk and lead to concrete partnerships.