The fifth annual Africa Early Stage Investor Summit begins in Cape Town on Sunday, November 11, bringing together the continent’s early-stage investor community to exchange best practices, learn from peers and recent transactions, and do deals.
For the second consecutive year, the summit will be hosted at Workshop17 in the V&A Waterfront, organised by VC4A and the African Business Angels Network (ABAN). The event kicks off a busy week in Cape Town, with the summit having partnered with AfricaCom and AfricArena to offer a full-week VIP Investor Pass giving access to all three events, as well as an innovation tour.
The organisers of the investor summit have chosen “The African Way to Investing” as the theme for this year’s event, will various keynotes, panel discussions and other sessions covering how VC models are being adapted for Africa, how what is being done to grow the number of local angel investors, and what instruments allow diaspora investors to play an active role.
Day one of the summit, on Sunday, offers participants the Investing Academy, featuring a number of workshops and masterclasses for both aspiring and experienced investors. In the afternoon, participants are invited to join the official Summit Welcome Cocktails, organised in partnership with Naspers.
The second day of the summit provides a highly focused yet varied programme consisting of keynotes, panels, workshops and masterclasses for investors by investors, networking experiences, exclusive co-investment opportunities, and the latest trends, insights and industry research. The day concludes with an exclusive investor networking dinner.
On Wednesday, November 14, all participants are invited to take part in the Cape Town and Stellenbosch Innovation Tour.
Speakers include the newly elected president of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN) Peter Cowley, Ido Sum of TL Com Capital, Khaled Ismail of HIMangel, Wale Ayeni of the IFC, Sam Paddock of GetSmarter, Keet van Zyl of Knife Capital, Quinton Soper of Proparco, Manuel Koser of Silvertree Internet Holdings, Marieme Diop of Orange Digital Ventures, and Amee Pharboo of Accion.
The summit will also encompass the VC4A Venture Showcase – Series A, introducing eight tech growth-stage companies selected and vetted by Africa’s leading VCs.
Eight startups from across the continent have been selected to receive mentoring from top VCs and pitch at the summit, with the aim of raising between US$250,000 and US$5 million in Series A capital. They will also be pitching at 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 AgroCentaand Ethiopia by IT personnel marketplace Gebeya.
