Pan-African startup support organisation Open Startup has launched The Science Road, a new strategic initiative aimed at accelerating deep tech and research-led ventures across Africa, as the Tunis-founded organisation celebrates a decade of operations.
The announcement marks a significant pivot for Open Startup, which has spent the past ten years evolving from a university entrepreneurship competition in Tunisia into a continent-wide investment readiness and ecosystem-building platform. With The Science Road, the organisation is now consolidating its programs under a unified acceleration platform with a sharpened focus on ventures working at the intersection of science and commercial opportunity.
From Competition to Continent
Since its founding in 2016, Open Startup has supported more than 3,000 founders and over 1,000 startups across more than 20 African countries. Over that period, the organisation built a wider community of more than 500 mentors, advisors, and experts, while training over 300 coaches and supporting ventures that have gone on to raise funding, create jobs, and remain active beyond the program period.
The new direction does not mark a departure from that foundation but an intensification of it. Open Startup has described the move as entering a next chapter that goes deeper into more science, more research, and more market and investment readiness.
What The Science Road Targets
The Science Road is focused on strengthening African science, deep tech, and research-led innovations as they move from the research stage into globally competitive ventures and industries. Priority sectors include health, climate, artificial intelligence, and adjacent technologies.
The initiative is designed to address a structural gap that has long challenged Africa’s deep tech potential. Many existing startup programs do not adequately support scientists in commercialising their research, with key ecosystem gaps including awareness among scientists, team-building support, governance guidance, and specialised commercialisation pathways.
Africa currently has an estimated 300 to 500 deep-tech startups across the continent, with South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Tunisia, and Morocco identified as leading markets. The Science Road is intended to grow that number by creating a more complete pathway, one that links scientific talent with commercial expertise, financing, and broader ecosystem support.
Building the Bridge
As part of this next phase, The Science Road will deepen Open Startup’s collaboration with partners such as CERI, Stellenbosch University, and LaunchLab, strengthening bridges between ecosystems spanning from Tunis to South Africa to support research-led founders as they move science out of the lab and closer to markets, investment, and real-world adoption.
The organisation’s broader partner network reflects the scale of its continental ambitions. Supporters over the past decade have included KfW AfricaGrow, AfricInvest, the United States Department of State, the European Union, Digital Africa, Bpifrance, the Drosos Foundation, Sanofi Ventures, and universities including Columbia University, MIT Sloan, and MIT Africa.
Why It Matters
Africa is producing strong and frugal science, but awareness and support vary significantly by country, and patient capital remains critical to bridging the gap between discovery and commercially viable ventures.
The Science Road positions Open Startup as one of the few continental platforms specifically structured around the unique demands of deep tech commercialisation, rather than simply adapting traditional accelerator models to a different context. As African innovation ecosystems continue to mature, that distinction could prove decisive.
