Eight startups from across the continent have been selected to receive mentoring from top VCs and pitch at the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit in Cape Town next month.
Disrupt Africa reported in June the fifth annual Africa Early Stage Investor Summit will take place in Cape Town on November 11-12, bringing together the continent’s early-stage investor community to exchange best practices, learn from peers and recent transactions, and do deals.
Ahead of the event, organisers VC4A and the African Business Angel Network (ABAN) called for applications from startups looking to raise Series A funding to pitch at the event. Eight startups have now been selected, and will over the next few weeks be linked to top VC investors as mentors and receive access to a bespoke curriculum before a one-week residency in Cape Town.
They will then pitch at the event, with the aim of raising between US$250,000 and US$5 million in Series A capital. There will also be pitching opportunities at two other events taking place in Cape Town that week: AfricaCom and AfricArena.
Two of the selected startups are from South Africa, namely GoMetro, which has developed cloud-based technology to make transport planning, tracking, paying and reporting much easier, and Invoiceworx, which provides access to inventory and purchase order of financing for small businesses.
Nigeria is also represented by two startups in the form of Fibre, which allows users to find and pay for rental homes, and Piggybank, which provides an automated savings platform enabling users to manage their finances by depositing small amounts of money.
Another two startups are from Egypt – multi-disciplinary research centre for natural and medical sciences Nawah-Scientific and online mental health platform Shezlong – while Ghana is represented by agri-tech startup AgroCenta and Ethiopia by IT personnel marketplace Gebeya.
“These companies represent a new class of investment opportunity coming up across the African continent. The selected ventures have strong revenues, are well positioned for regional and international expansion, and demonstrate important innovations that are disrupting industries like agriculture, healthcare, housing, transportation, and finance,” VC4A said.
