Norrsken, the global impact ecosystem for tech entrepreneurship, on Thursday, February 29, announced the appointment of Elie Habimana as the new Managing Director for Norrsken East Africa.
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Habimana takes over from Pascal Murasira, who spearheaded Norrsken’s mission in Rwanda, and led the transformation of an abandoned school in Kigali into Africa's largest startup-dedicated campus.
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Habimana has been a key part of Norrsken’s successful journey to create and catalyze impact-focused tech entrepreneurship in Kigali and across East Africa.
He led the Norrsken House Kigali construction and set up operations that serve its thriving community.
He will take the reins as Managing Director at Norrsken East Africa on March 1, 2024.
Since its phase 1 opening in late 2021, Norrsken House Kigali has grown to become the biggest hub for startups in Africa.
Today it is a home to more than 1000 tech startup and SME entrepreneurs, investors, world-class talent and startup enablers from across the continent.
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Sara Kappelmark, co-CEO at Norrsken Foundation said: "Elie was the clear and obvious choice as we concluded an extensive months-long search process. Our vision remains to contribute to making Rwanda a leading thriving ecosystem for impactful entrepreneurs, and we are committed to making Norrsken House Kigali the place to be for the most visionary founders and investors on the continent. We look forward to the next phase of inspired growth and ecosystem support through Norrsken House Kigali with Elie at the head of our stellar Kigali team.”
Elie Habimana reacted to the appointment saying: "Our mission remains unchanged. With our infrastructure in place, it's time to double down our efforts in attracting capital, knowledge, and networks to support founders and startups addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. I look forward to continuing and deepening the collaboration with our existing and new partners to fulfill this commitment.”
Habimana said that as they enter a new chapter of the history, he will continue to lead Norrsken’s team and community in Kigali to perfect the platform that has been created and tap into the pan-African and global network to attract capital and knowledge to help the most promising founders on the continent grow and scale.
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Norrsken is a non-profit, non-partisan and non-religious impact ecosystem founded by Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of payment services unicorn Klarna.
It supports entrepreneurs and provides visionary founders with everything they need to make saving the world their business.
Its work stems from a belief in entrepreneurship and new technology as forces that can positively impact the world.
Norrsken’s global ecosystem includes thriving tech hubs in Stockholm, Kigali and Barcelona as well as five venture capital funds that have collectively raised more than $500 million to back exceptional entrepreneurs who combine profit with positive global impact.
Two of those funds, Africa Seed Fund and Norrsken22 focus exclusively on finding and backing the best African early-stage to growth-stage startups.