The Role of Investors in Shaping Exit Strategies for Startups

“Successful exits don’t happen by chance—they are designed. Investors must help startups build scale, strengthen governance, and prepare for the kind of capital injection, acquisitions or IPOs that inspire confidence across global markets. When startups and investors design exits together, they don’t just create liquidity—they create ecosystems that thrive beyond a single company’s journey ” – Tania Eyanga

From Growth to Exit: The Role of Investors in Shaping Startup Journeys

At the Tunis Summit 2024 by AfricArena, the spotlight turned to one of the most critical questions for Africa’s startup ecosystem: How do investors shape exit strategies that ensure sustainability, liquidity, and long-term impact?

As part of this important conversation, Tania Eyanga, Chair of CAMPEA, joined a high-level panel with Safa Tlijani, 216 Ventures’ VC Analyst,  v3 Factory CEO Sara Ben Younes, Mohamed Amine Boudhiba, Associate Principal at CrossBoundary, and Fadi Bishara, Founder of Blackbox. The discussion brought together voices from across the investment spectrum, highlighting both regional and global perspectives on startup exits.

Exits as Catalysts for Ecosystem Growth

The panel emphasized that exits are not merely end-points for startups, but critical milestones that unlock liquidity, validate ecosystems, and recycle capital into new ventures. Investors play a defining role in this process—helping entrepreneurs navigate governance, valuation, partnerships, and buyer engagement.

Panel Highlights

• Safa Tlijani, panel moderator, steered the important conversation into defined perspectives that benefit the diverse audience comprised of founders, entrepreneurs, investors and students bodies

• Sara Ben Younes highlighted the growing role of women leaders and ecosystem builders in structuring exits that are both inclusive and sustainable.

• Mohamed Amine Boudhiba (CrossBoundary) explored how blended finance and structured transactions can help unlock larger-scale acquisitions.

• Fadi Bishara (Blackbox) emphasized the importance of building globally competitive startups from day one, ensuring African founders can attract buyers and strategic partners across borders.

Key takeaways

Investors play a pivotal role at every stage of the exit process:

• Strategic Guidance: By engaging early, investors can help startups position themselves for acquisitions, IPOs, or secondary sales that align with long-term market trends.

• Network Access: Investors often open doors to regional and international buyers, strategic partners, and later-stage capital providers.

• Governance & Structure: From setting up clean corporate governance to ensuring transparent reporting, investors prepare startups for due diligence and buyer confidence.

• Market Signaling: A successful exit backed by reputable investors enhances ecosystem credibility, demonstrating that viable pathways to liquidity exist.

From the purview of capital raising experience

“ Exits are not the end of the story, they are milestones that prove scale, resilience, and global relevance. The future of African startups will be measured not only by how much they raise, but by how well they exit.”

Leveraging her experience and market anecdotes occurring on the Africa SMEs and startup funding scene, Tania Eyanga highlighted the importance of scale and market share expansion in shaping viable exit strategies. She argued that too often, African startups seek liquidity events prematurely and therefore unsuccessfully, before they have reached the size, industry notoriety, resilience, and market presence required to attract financing from an equity or debt investor, which may open leads to global strategic acquirers/ buyers or to list on public markets. This approach is supported by trends whereby larger corporates and regional champions are acquiring startups to accelerate their digital transformation.

To address this, she emphasized the need for startup mergers and consolidations as a strategic pathway, despite operational bottlenecks that may surface at first:

“In Central Africa and across the continent, exits are not the end of the entrepreneurial journey—they are enablers of renewal. When investors take an active role in shaping exit strategies, they create a virtuous cycle of capital recycling, ecosystem growth, and investor confidence. This represents both a challenge and an extraordinary opportunity where we can envisage viable scenarios that encourage emerging and innovative startups to merge, consolidate, and grow into critical mass in order to boost their positioning for strategic acquisitions or consequential fundraising tickets. As a result, several entities can command the valuations, credibility, and investor confidence that Africa’s entrepreneurs deserve.” – Tania Eyanga, Chair of CAMPEA

By pooling resources, talent, and market share, startups can create stronger regional champions capable of competing at scale. These larger, more resilient entities are not only more attractive to strategic acquirers but also better positioned for eventual IPOs on African or international exchanges.

Looking Ahead

For Central Africa, where exits remain rare but increasingly possible such as the case for Mediterrania Capital Partners with their exit of Groupe Cofina, this panel reinforced the idea that investors are architects of the future. By shaping exit strategies today, they are laying the foundation for tomorrow’s growth, resilience, and global investor confidence.