By hosting the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in November 2014 in Marrakech, Morocco placed the spotlight on entrepreneurship and made it a national strategic focus.
On that occasion, the World Bank announced a 50‑million‑dollar loan intended for investment in startups, marking a turning point in the financing of innovative entrepreneurship and sowing the seeds for a national venture capital industry.
A decade later, it must be acknowledged that while progress has been made in supporting and financing startups, our country’s economy has not been stimulated by a new generation of high-growth startups.
The scarcity of growth entrepreneurship is a real hindrance to the country’s development. In its report on the New Development Model, the CSMD estimated that the economy would need to grow by at least 6% to allow Morocco to achieve its human development goals and to position itself among the top third of advanced economies. Even if it is not the only lever, reaching this target will not be possible without scaling up our entrepreneurial ecosystem, which, compared to other regional ecosystems, still remains in an emerging phase. A few figures illustrate the embryonic nature of our ecosystem.
The official document for the Digital Morocco 2030 strategy states that Morocco has an “approximate” stock of 380 startups—a figure far too low to generate gazelles (companies with double-digit revenue growth) or unicorns valued at over one billion dollars.
The number of startups that have received investment from seed funds (46 as of the end of 2023) or venture capital funds (75) is far from the 380 announced in the Digital Morocco 2030 document, especially considering that some startups are likely counted twice in this investment sequence.
The total amount invested in startups is even more telling: 290 million MAD (29 million US$) in seed funding by the end of 2023 and 653 million MAD (65 million US$) in venture capital. Compared to the volumes of capital invested in startups in America, Europe, and Asia, these amounts are almost negligible.
The Digital Morocco 2030 plan aims for 10 gazelles by 2026 (none in 2024) and one to two unicorns by 2030. This is an ambitious target compared to the current state, yet very little to contribute to doubling the pace of GDP growth.
A decade after the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, how can it be explained that our economy has so few growth companies?
This situation is all the more incomprehensible considering that the past decade saw the creation of several dozen incubators and accelerators benefiting from public, private, and international financial support. The decade also saw the emergence of a national venture capital industry, notably spurred by the Innov Invest fund, which was fueled by the 50‑million‑dollar loan from the World Bank.
If the amount invested in startups so far is modest, it is not due to a lack of available capital but rather a lack of quality projects. The amount announced by the Mohammed VI Fund for startup investments, as well as the creation by several large Moroccan companies of corporate venturing funds, have significantly increased the financial resources available. This phenomenon is even beginning to trigger bidding wars among investors over a limited number of quality projects.
If support organizations and financing vehicles are no longer—or are less—of a problem, then what is “wrong”?
Viewed as a market, our entrepreneurial ecosystem no longer suffers from a lack of support and investment supply but from a lack of demand for these mechanisms. The shortfall lies in the supply of entrepreneurs.
Public policies and private initiatives have primarily focused on the downstream phases of the entrepreneurship value chain, while the problem actually lies upstream.
Taking upstream action means strengthening our national innovation system, which suffers greatly from a lack of resources, creativity, and proactive leadership. The first—and only—time the country implemented a national innovation strategy, launched in 2009, the rocket exploded on the launchpad due to a design flaw in the implementation mechanism.
Since the false launch of a national innovation strategy, our investment in research and development has plateaued at around 0.7%, whereas OECD countries allocate, on average, 2.4%.
A closer look at the 0.7% reveals that a significant portion goes into university professor salaries that generate little or no research, as suggested by the very low proportion (8%) of domestically originated patent applications registered by OMPIC in 2022, or by the low level of publications in international scientific journals.
The second upstream lever that we have not yet managed to activate is education. There is no need to rub salt in an open wound, but our educational system—which consumes 20% of the state budget—does not nurture an entrepreneurial mindset among young Moroccans. We have been talking for too long about the need to make more room for initiative, creativity, autonomy, and teamwork.
There are no magic formulas to reform the school system and foster innovation in order to accelerate the supply of entrepreneurs and growth startups. Let us first agree that public and private efforts must be directed upstream—and not only downstream—in the entrepreneurial process.
If we share this conviction, we could find solutions. Let’s put these issues at the heart of the entrepreneurship agenda for the next decade.
