Joining world with Africa’s great tech start-ups
AFRICA is the next big thing but this will not happen if thousands of entrepreneurs on the continent don’t have access to funding and a platform to pitch their ideas to the world.
This is according to Christophe Viarnaud, leader of La French Tech in South Africa and chief executive of Methys, who announced the launch of the AfricArena 2017 International Africa Tech Conference, to take place at the Century City Conference Centre on November 6 and 7.
AfricArena is a new platform that aims to connect investors from all over the world with start-ups from Africa. It was created following the joining of two powerful forces working in the tech space, Silicon Cape and La French Tech.
Viarnaud said that according to the Deloitte Global Technology Fast 500 EMEA annual ranking, France has the largest number of hyper-growth firms in the Europe, Middle East and Africa area, for the sixth successive year and had over $2 billion (R26.5bn) in early stage funding, while funding for the entire African continent barely exceeded $200m.
He said that despite this Africa has the fastest economic growth, the youngest population and is, in terms of economic opportunity, where Asia was three decades ago.
“We are thrilled to have this partnership between Silicon Cape and La French Tech, resulting in the development of an innovative and exciting event in Cape Town. Africa is already home to major innovations in key areas such as mobile payment, smart city and tourism. Our goal is to make AfricArena the event of reference for international investors, entrepreneurs and large companies that are interested in the digital transformation opportunities taking shape on the continent.”
Ellen Fischat, newly appointed managing director of Silicon Cape, said the conference will give global entrepreneurs, investors and corporates a forum to discover, connect and hopefully transact with African startups. She said the conference will interlink global tech and investor industries to the vast opportunities for investment activity in Africa with tech-enabled businesses.