Cape Town, South Africa | 14 September 2026
With support from the Government of Japan, Digital Frontiers, in partnership with the Triggerfish Foundation and on behalf of the UNDP timbuktoo Creatives Hub in Cape Town, is delivering the Animation Studio Accelerator Programme. Designed to support growth-stage, founder-led African animation studios, the programme strengthens pathways to market, investment and sustainable growth.
Creative industries are increasingly recognised as important contributors to economic growth, entrepreneurship, and employment. According to the International Finance Corporation, creative industries generate more than $2.3 trillion in annual revenue globally, employ over 200 million people, and account for 6.2 per cent of global employment. In Africa alone, the creative economy could contribute 20 million jobs and $200 billion in economic value by 2030. Yet despite this potential, emerging markets currently receive less than one per cent of global financing for the creative economy, highlighting a significant gap between the sector’s potential and the resources available to support its growth.
While Africa’s animation sector continues to demonstrate significant creative talent and global potential, many studios face challenges in accessing the commercial ecosystems, networks, expertise, and opportunities needed to scale. This Animation Studio Accelerator Programme addresses this gap by supporting growth-stage, founder-led African animation studios to strengthen their commercial readiness, market positioning, and pathways to investment and industry partnerships.
This programme is a market-facing accelerator that turns selected African animation studios from promising suppliers into deal-ready production partners. Through a structured eight-month accelerator, participating studios will receive targeted support across studio diagnostics, growth planning, production positioning, market validation, industry matchmaking, and financing pathways.
UNDP South Africa’s Resident Representative, Maxwell Gomera, states, “I know the audience for animated stories is real because I am part of it. I have found myself on Facebook watching one short episode after another, sometimes through adverts and sometimes by paying to see what happens next. These stories are powerful, but they are also a real business. AI is now putting production tools within reach of many more African storytellers. This programme will help their studios reach markets, build partnerships and attract investment so that great African stories can also become great African businesses.”
The programme forms part of the UNDP timbuktoo Creatives Hub, a pan-African platform designed to strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship across Africa’s creative economy. The Hub connects creative entrepreneurs with knowledge, networks, markets, and investment opportunities, supporting the growth of businesses and strengthening pathways for young people to participate in Africa’s creative economy. UNDP’s broader timbuktoo initiative aims to support African startups, scale high-growth enterprises, mobilise investment, and build a connected pan-African innovation ecosystem.
“For Digital Frontiers, the programme also reflects our focus on youth employment. Equipping young people with essential skills and opportunities to become economically resilient by creating work for themselves and others. We know this strengthens communities where traditional employment does not yet keep pace for young people. By strengthening the businesses and ecosystems that create opportunities for young people, the Animation Studio Accelerator Programme supports an entrepreneurial and inclusive approach to employment in Africa’s growing creative economy,” shares Todd Malone, Chief Executive Officer at Digital Frontiers.
Selected studios will participate in a combination of virtual learning, tailored mentorship, industry engagement, and high-value in-person validation moments at the Creatives Hub. The programme’s virtual-first delivery model enables mentoring and industry engagement to be embedded into the day-to-day realities of founders, CEOs, and studio leads, reducing unnecessary travel while supporting consistent participation throughout the programme.
Mentorship will be tailored to each studio’s growth stage, production model, and commercial ambitions, recognising different pathways to growth, including service production, original intellectual property, co-production, specialist capabilities, and hybrid business models.
The accelerator combines milestone-based venture support with commercial validation, ensuring participating studios demonstrate measurable progress through practical outputs rather than attendance alone. Each studio will develop a Studio Scale Plan, refine its market proposition, strengthen pitch assets, receive direct feedback from industry decision-makers, and identify clear next steps for collaboration, commissioning, distribution, and finance.
The programme is open to animation studios based in the Western Cape region of South Africa, with female-led studios and founders from under-represented groups especially encouraged to apply. Targeted outreach and inclusive engagement strategies will be used to reach and attract a diverse pool of high-potential studios and founders, helping to strengthen diversity and representation within the animation ecosystem.
“African animation studios have the talent and the stories; what they’ve often lacked is structured access to the commercial pathways that turn creative potential into sustainable businesses. Through Triggerfish Foundation’s work across the continent, we’ve seen firsthand how the right mentorship and market access at the right moment can be the difference between a studio staying small and a studio scaling. We’re proud to partner with Digital Frontiers and the UNDP timbuktoo Creatives Hub on this programme and excited to help this cohort of studios build the commercial readiness they need to compete on a global stage,” shares Carina Lücke, Director at Triggerfish Foundation.
The Animation Studio Accelerator Programme reflects the growing potential of Africa’s creative economy to drive entrepreneurship, employment, innovation, and economic growth. By connecting ambitious studios with the networks and commercial opportunities needed to grow, the programme aims to strengthen a pipeline of globally competitive animation businesses while creating new pathways for young Africans to participate in and contribute to the creative economy.
About the United Nations Development Programme:
The United Nations Development Programme works in more than 170 countries and territories to help eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilient nations. In South Africa, UNDP partners with government, civil society, the private sector and communities to advance inclusive growth, innovation, youth empowerment and sustainable development aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
timbuktoo is UNDP’s pan-African innovation initiative designed to unlock the potential of Africa’s entrepreneurs and innovators. Launched in January 2024, the initiative brings together governments, investors, universities, private sector partners and entrepreneurs to strengthen innovation ecosystems and create pathways for African startups to access mentorship, financing, markets and other forms of support. The initiative aims to mobilise US$1 billion over 10 years, support 10,000 startups, scale 1,000 high-impact enterprises, and improve 100 million livelihoods across the continent.
The timbuktoo Creatives Hub, hosted in South Africa, serves as a pan-African platform supporting innovation within the creative economy by connecting entrepreneurs with knowledge, networks, markets, and investment opportunities.
About Digital Frontiers:
Established in 2015 and headquartered in Cape Town, Digital Frontiers is an African non-profit organisation specialising in the design and delivery of high-impact learning experiences, digital capacity-building programmes, and ecosystem development initiatives that support inclusive growth across the Global South.
Operating across Africa and in collaboration with global partners, Digital Frontiers has built a strong reputation for delivering large-scale, practice-driven learning programmes that strengthen institutional and individual capacities and support innovation ecosystems in emerging markets. The organisation works across a broad range of sectors, including youth employment, digital innovation, financial inclusion, digital public infrastructure, gender equity, and creative and technology-driven industries.
About Triggerfish Foundation:
The Triggerfish Foundation is the non-profit arm of Africa’s largest and most awarded animation studio, Triggerfish.
The Foundation partners with global stakeholders to implement programmes that lower the barriers to premium animation production on the continent, supporting producers, artists and technicians with a particular focus on production, gender equity and sustainability.
Media Contacts:
Ntokozo Mahlangu
ntokozo.mahlangu@undp.org
Dané Brown
dane@digitalfrontiers.org
Carina Lücke
Carina.Luecke@triggerfish.com