Tunisia, often ignored in discussions about the developing technological scene in Africa, quietly boasts a energetic ecosystem mature with potential. While giants, akin to the Republic of South Africa and Nigeria, command the headers, the small nation of North Africa is strategically positioned as an essential bridge between Africa and Europe.
With a rapid increase in startups, growing government support and a unique geographical advantage, Tunisia can grow to be a key player in the landscape of continent’s innovation. The query is: possibly a jump from the promising competition to the real center of the scale-what can other emerging technological ecosystems learn from his progress?
Tunisia sits at an early stage of the innovation ecosystem life cycle curve, in addition to hundreds of other regional centers.
Analyzing the rising ecosystem, there are two perspectives:
- View 10,000 miles (aka half empty glass): The world of innovation is not flat. A handful of fundamental technology centers dominates the global startup scene, attracting the attention of “innovation hunters” – VC funds and international firms. Without a critical mass or strong international connections, smaller ecosystems risk will remain invisible and outside the global atlas.
- View of possibilities (i.e. half -glass): in the case of these ecosystems, the challenge is rapid scaling and securing the place on the global Atlas Scaleup. Strategic government policy can significantly speed up this process, supporting growth and global integration.
Together with CrunchbaseWe conducted an in -depth evaluation of the Tunisia startup ecosystem, which makes significant progress to find out as a regional technology center.
. Tunisia on a technology scale – report 2025manufactured by my organization, Watch out for the bridgeWith the support of ICC Tunisia and Terna Innovation Zone, it presents full data and was presented in Tunis on February 12.
By numbers: Landscape of innovation in Tunisia
Since 2025, Tunisia has been organizing 17 scales and over 1,450 startups, among the 10 best places in Africa regarding technological innovation. The country is also home to one of the brightest success stories of continent technology: Instadeep, which collected funding price $ 100 million and was taken over by Biontech In one of the largest technological technical transactions in Africa in Africa.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Under the surface lies a multi -faceted ecosystem, which incorporates:
- 54 Higher Education Institutions;
- 26 energetic local VC investing from seeds to series A;
- 34 Research and development institutions (16 research centers, 9 Technopoles, 9 technical centers focused on the industry);
- 62 Innovation support organizations (incubators, accelerators, startup studies);
- Distributed network 80-flus Innovations, spaces and laboratories; AND
- 15 public institutions and 14 NGOs supporting entrepreneurship.
The role of the government in the increase in the innovation of Tunisia
The Push Innovation of Tunisia began at the starting of 2000 with a series of government initiatives, including:
- National Program for Business Incubators (1999): Integrated business incubation with higher education institutions.
- Technopole Law (2001): The progressive nodes established mix education, research and technology development.
- Act on launch (2016) and startup Act 2.0: tax incentives introduced, financial support and legal framework to support entrepreneurship.
- Digital Tunisia Plan 2025: Evolution of the Digital Tunisia 2020, aimed at accelerating digital transformation and economic modernization.
- Terna Innovation Zone Tunzia (2025): The first Innovation Center in Africa and Mena managed by the Italian TSO TERNA, strengthening the role of Tunisia in technological innovations.
Apart from numbers: Tunisia’s place on the innovation stage in Africa
While the largest innovation ecosystems in Africa-Southern Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya-Kenya from them are the host of about 150 scales with over 2 billion dollars of capital, Tunesia belongs to the second level group next to Morocco, Mauritius, Ghana, Seychel and Uganda.
Despite the relatively small population (12.5 million), Tunisia with 17 scales and almost 1,500 startups has 0.14 scale and 12.5 startups per 100,000 inhabitants. These numbers are in line with regional leaders, akin to Egypt, and outweigh the neighbors of Morocco and Algeria.
In terms of allocation of capital, Tunisia devotes 0.4%of its innovation GDP – double Morocco (0.2%) and Algeria 4 times (0.1%) – although it still stays behind Egypt, which invests almost twice as much.
Road forward: Tunisia as a north -west scale in Africa?
Tunisia has a real opportunity to grow to be a node in North -West Africa – and more importantly, a bridge between Africa and Europe.
Key challenge? Helping startups in a scale. Navigation successfully in this phase could cause a virtuous cycle, increasing the regional and global importance of Tunisia while attracting more investors and entrepreneurs.
Thanks to the proper mixture of politics, capital and international cooperation, Tunisia can strengthen its position as a growing strength in the African technology landscape.
Photo by James Wiseman ON Unsplash.