Legal issues are still causing too many deals to fail in Francophone Africa.
Poorly structured companies, missing or inconsistent shareholders’ agreements, unexecuted contracts, unregistered intellectual property.
These weaknesses often surface too late — during due diligence or final negotiations — giving investors strong leverage to significantly reduce valuations.
The result: fundraising rounds delayed, renegotiated, or abandoned, even when the business fundamentals are solid.
These failures are not due to a lack of talent or market potential, but to the absence of clear, shared legal standards upstream.
This challenge is even more acute for international startups and investors.
Many actors from Anglophone Africa, Europe, or the US want to expand or invest in Francophone African markets — but face a major obstacle:
there is no clear, accessible legal framework explaining how to operate, structure, and invest across Francophone jurisdictions.
This structural gap is precisely why African Legal Factory was created.
Since 2021, African Legal Factory supports startups, investors, and ecosystem builders who want to anticipate legal risks rather than discover them too late.
The platform enables them to:
– structure the legal foundations of tech ventures operating in Francophone Africa;
– understand investor-grade legal standards across jurisdictions;
– adopt clear, practical, and operational legal practices.
Structure before investing.
Structure before fundraising.
Structure before negotiating.
