Angel Fair Africa beyond the KINGS
Introduction
Angel Fair Africa (AfA) was founded 5 years ago to address the need in the emerging African entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem for entrepreneurs and investors to come together and do deals. Not a conference to talk about investment but an event where carefully selected entrepreneurs and investors are brought together in the right environment to do deals.
Our approach was to invite leading promoters of innovation to nominate their best entrepreneurs in their area to pitch to an audience of local and international investors. The event was designed to augment their local programmes by offering an additional opportunity for investment and collaboration, thus helping to fuel the fires of innovation that they had ignited in their local regions. We focused on hosting events in five countries, the “KINGS” who are leading the digital economy in Africa[1], namely; Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
AfA has now resulted in $23M worth of investments in these 5 countries and other forms of deals like partnerships, mentorships, sales, collaboration, etc. We are now taking it beyond the KINGS.
Joburg, South Africa
The inaugural event was held in South Africa, the early launchpad of the African digital economy. On 25thSeptember 2013, the doors of the Sandton Convention Centre opened to 24 selected entrepreneurs from 12 African countries and 88 investors from around the world. Also present were ecosystem partners from across Africa. As a result, the Bertha Foundation invested in Vuyos from South Africa and Eric Osiakwan invested in Teranga Solutions from Senegal. Russell Southwood of Balancing Act Africa aptly wrote “the angels are over Johannesburg” — we helped to spark a euphoria of angel investing across continent.
Lagos, Nigeria
After the success of our first event, we were invited by the Africa Venture Capital Association (AVCA) to stage our 2014 event alongside their next annual event in Nigeria. We partnered with Dotun Sulaiman (who had attended the inaugural event) and Tomi Davies of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN) to create a 2-day event at the Intercontinental Hotel with 20 selected entrepreneurs from 8 African countries pitching to 102 Angel, Venture Capital (VC) and Private Equity (PE) investors from across Africa and beyond. The second day focused on established businesses looking for later stage funding. LAN met two startups, HutBay and Autobox, which later became their first investments. LAN has since followed the event format to develop their quarterly “DEALS DAY” where selected entrepreneurs pitch and they invest. The event was keynoted by Hon. Segun Aganga then Minister of Trade and Investment of Nigeria.[2]
Accra, Ghana
We staged the 2015 event in Ghana in partnership with the Africa Tech Summit which was organized by the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST). We agreed to host the two-day tech summit dedicated to discussing issues in the ecosystem and then the 3rdday to doing deals at Angel Fair Africa both at the Labadi Beach Hotel. This time 10 entrepreneurs were selected from 5 African countries to pitch to a room of 78 investors and partners from within and outside Africa resulting in the announcement of three deals; Zeepay raising their first investment, Tutu Agyare backing MoneyBoxx and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supporting Expresspay. It was the first-time deals were announced at the event — an important milestone.
Nairobi, Kenya
When the angels descended on the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi in 2016, we returned to our two-day format bringing together 20 entrepreneurs from 7 African countries to pitch to a room of 84 investors and partners from within and outside Africa. Dr. Chris Kirubi of Centum Investments, Tim Draper of Draper Associates and Dave McClure of 500 startups were the three keynotes for the event.[3]We had our first all-female investors panel which turned out to be the hallmark of the event. Three deals were generated from the event: Singularity Investments, Viktoria Ventures and Yossi Hasson of Techstars committed to investing in 3 startups out of the 20 that pitched. Subsequently Farmdrive raised $1M from the Safaricom Spark Fund who were at the event. Grey Elephant, an early stage seed fund who were also at the event, invested $150K convertible notes each in Sokowatch and Inukpa Pap and $100K in Flare. Sokowatch has since moved on to raise a seed round of $2M.[4]
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
On November 23rd2017, archangel Esther Dyson led an Angel Investors masterclass at the MDE Business School to usher in the new members of the Ivoire Business Angel Network — our first masterclass exclusively for angels and wannabe angels.[5]The Chambre de Commerce et D’Industrie de Cote d’Ivoirethen hosted the 5thAngel Fair Africa from the 24thto 25thNovember 2017 welcoming 20 entrepreneurs selected from 7 Africa countries and 52 local and global investors as well as partners from around the world. Being the first francophone country, conducted the event in French and English with simultaneous translation. Building on our gender balance, we had more female participation in our panels than males at this event.
Angel Fair Africa has gained the status of Africa’s deal making event, having facilitated around $23M of investments across five events based on the formula of bringing together curated entrepreneurs and selected investors in an intimate setting to hear slide free pitches that present the core of each entrepreneur’s story interspersed with keynotes and experienced panel debates from leading investors and successful entrepreneurs.
Coming soon — Maputo, Mozambique
After successfully proving this in the KINGS countries, we are taking the event to Maputo, Mozambique from 29th to 30thNovember 2018 bringing together 60 investors, 20 entrepreneurs and 10 partners. The flow for the event is:
1. 3-day boot camp for the entrepreneurs in residence
2. Half day investors masterclass for angel investors
3. Investors dinner for investors and partners
4. 2-day event with the first day focused on entrepreneurs raising their first round and the second day focused on those raising their second or third round.
Join us for what would be an amazing deal making event.
