evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

InnovaLab GW — Guinea-Bissau's Pioneer Start-up Incubator

Guinea-Bissau · Bissau · See the Guinea-Bissau profile · See the Bissau profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 83% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Guinea-Bissau's first innovation accelerator, InnovaLab GW has run since 2015/2016 from a 15-seat Bissau co-working space, reporting 200+ jobs, 300+ events and 20+ start-ups helped — self-reported milestones, not an independent audit.

200+
Direct jobs created (self-reported)
20+
Startups helped create

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
InnovaLab GW
Period
2015–present
Keywords
tech incubation, entrepreneurship, co-working, SME support

Context

InnovaLab GW, founded by Adulai Bary and Claudinecia Cabral around 2015-2016, was Guinea-Bissau's first innovation accelerator, running a 24-hour co-working space for up to 15 people in Bissau, plus mentoring and legal-expert connections for entrepreneurs, and a member of AfriLabs, Seedstars, YALI and the Next Einstein Forum networks.

Results

By the mid-2020s, InnovaLab GW reported creating more than 200 direct jobs, organising more than 300 events, and helping create more than 20 startups; earlier years incubated over 10 projects, five of which became operational businesses.

Conclusions

Guinea-Bissau has had no other comparable tech-sector incubator track record over this period, making InnovaLab GW's decade of continuous operation a notable sustainability result in a market most investors consider too small to support a standalone hub.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
InnovaLab GW founders and mentors, AfriLabs / Seedstars / YALI Network partnerships

Conditions for success

  • Sustained co-working and mentoring space
  • Continued pan-African network membership for funding and visibility

Common failure modes

  • No independent audit of self-reported job/startup figures

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful