Eleven startups from across the African continent, identified as “entrepreneurs for humanity”, were awarded the opportunity to partner with the AfricArena challenge corporate sponsors at the end of the second AfricArena technology conference in Cape Town today.

Saturday 17 November, Cape Town – Amongst others, Air France KLM selected DiscoverIkasi and Sea Monster, both from South Africa, to assist with improving the travel experience and sustainability of its subsidiary Joon. Vinci Energie, will work with Senegal’s Oniriq and South Africa’s DataProphet on innovative energy solutions in Africa.

See the full list of winners, sponsors and challenges below.

During 2018, in the run up to AfricArena2018, 60 startups pitched their businesses in regional events in eight cities across Africa. Many of which were invited to take part in a series of challenges set by the AfricArena sponsors, all looking to solve uniquely African business problems.  

SOLUTIONS FOR THE AFRICAN MARKET

The AfricArena 2018 conference was anchored and endorsed by major international sponsors La French Tech, Silicon Cape, Vinci Energies, AirFrance KLM, Engie, Saint-Gobain, Methys, Rogerwilco, City of Cape Town, Proparco, RCS, and Leroy Merlin.

The following sponsors specifically came to South Africa and AfricArena to explore innovation opportunities within Africa and abroad: RCS, Saint-Gobain, AirFrance KLM, Vinci Energies, VivaTech, Leroy Merlin, Engie, Sanofi and FSAT Labs.

“We expect to have a different approach from these startups, a bright idea that could be easily implemented, and also to benefit from what is very high potential in terms of innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives. And to find solutions that are very well adapted to the African market,” said Jean-Michel Mathieu, CEO of Joon, a subsidiary of Air France.

“African entrepreneurs are very willing to find solutions, to take risks, they address vital expectations and needs, and they are looking at the challenges with a very frugal mindset. I think this is a lesson for us as well, we learn a lot working with them and collaborating with them to find the right solutions and we take this inspiration back to Europe with us,” said Lydia Babaci-Victor, Chief Innovation and Development Officer at Vinci Energies.

Vincent Viollain, co-Founder and Head of Partnerships and Startups at VivaTech, the biggest tech conference in Europe said: “The leapfrog ability of African technology has become a bit of a cliché. But when you get a chance to see it, you’ll see that it’s actually true. African technology is frugal, its smart and it can have an impact locally as well as globally. In our winner, Aerobotics’ case we believe the solution can move beyond physical borders, and also have application in different industry sectors.” 

AFRICARENA WINNERS:

The startups who won the challenges, were grateful of the experience and excited to be moving forward with some of the largest corporations across the globe.

“Oniriq provides access to African rural populations through energy and the internet. It’s great to be here at AfricArena, it has been a journey. For two months we’ve been participating in this challenge since the selection two months ago in Dakar with Vinci Energies team and we’ve been in discussions since. For us the win is a great achievement and we’re looking forward to starting our collaboration in Senegal,” said Rodolphe Rosier, Founder of Oniriq. 

“We’d like to thank AfricArena and VivaTech for the opportunity to present and we’re really happy to have won and we cannot wait to be in Paris in May. We’re already expanding around the world and this presence at VivaTech 2019 will give us a great opportunity to meet the European market,” said Nasreen Patel, Head of Product at Aerobotics. 

“This is not just a win for DiscoverIkasi, it’s a win for the communities we work with across South Africa. It’s going to give them a lot more exposure. This is what we’ve been working towards since starting the business, to get to a platform where I can market DiscoverIkasi, our market, our experiences and the townships on an international stage. Now we need to go back home and form a strategy to scale the business across South Africa,” said Ntsebenziswano (Benzi) November, Founder of DiscoverIkasi.

The startups attending the conference will also each be receiving credit from AWS as part of their prizes. Each startup in attendance, winner or not, will receive $2000 in AWS credit.  

A WORD FROM THE ECO-SYSTEM

Kerry Petrie, General Manager of Silicon Cape, host ecosystem of AfricArena, states: “It’s such an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs from all across the continent to connect and share, building bridges that may hold future partnership, export and market opportunities. It builds the visibility of the pan-African community for a local, regional and global stakeholder audience. We have to work together to increase investment in African ventures from 1%. And AfricArena is playing a pivotal role in making that a reality.”

Reflecting on the event, Christophe Viarnaud, CEO of AfricArena, expanded on the philosophy behind the conference. “AfricArena’s open collaborative Pan-African model, highly inclusive and embarking all categories of investors, ecosystem contributors, and corporates focused on innovation in Africa, has demonstrated very high impact throughout 2018 with 16 events on 3 continents. The grand finale at AfricArena2018 has shown the energy and excitement from 15 corporates, over 150 investors and 70 startups, with over $2m deals being done, startup-corporate partnerships being struck and a wave of energy and innovation from African entrepreneurs. We could not be more excited about the future, comments Viarnaud.  

THE WINNERS:

Air France KLM Challenge 1                     DiscoverIkasi

Air France KLM Challenge 2                    Sea Monster

Engie Challenge                                           Arnegy

Leroy Merlin Challenge                             BizAR Reality

Saint-Gobain Challenge 1                         Swift GeoSpatial

Saint-Gobain Challenge 2                         The Student Hub

Sanofi South Africa Challenge                Iyeza Health

The RCS Group Challenge                        ThisIsMe

Vinci Energies Challenge 1                       Oniriq

Vinci Energies Challenge 2                       DataProphet

Vivatech 2019 Challenge                          Aerobotics 

SPONSORS AND THEIR CHALLENGES:

Air France KLM Challenge 1 – optimising the airline’s travel experience while reducing its environmental footprint

Air France KLM Challenge 2 – using technology to enrich subsidiary Joon’s travel experience for its passengers

Engie Challenge – ensuing a reliable energy supply in urban areas

Leroy Merlin Challenge – immersive showroom experience that shows off a large variety of products

Saint-Gobain Challenge 1 – using satellite trend analysis to predict urban and climate challenges

Saint-Gobain Challenge 2 -- a solution to upgrade professionals’ skills across Africa, especially in remote areas.

Sanofi South Africa Challenge – optimising patient treatment adherence and completion rates

The RCS Group Challenge – storing and securing customer identity and authentication credentials

Vinci Energies Challenge 1 – using digitalisation to optimise industry and energy performance

Vinci Energies Challenge 2 – How to make energy more accessible in Africa using technology such as energy efficiency flow solutions, energy flow optimisation, blockchain and artificial intelligence

Vivatech 2019 Challenge – using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate growth and sustainability in the agriculture sector 

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For more information on AfricArena or this press release, please contact:

Mika Stanvliet | 081 534 6237 | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

About AfricArena:

AfricArena is a conference that showcases Africa’s best startups and innovators in front of an audience of local and international investors looking for world-class talent.Celebrated as the largest tech ecosystem accelerator on the African continent, last year’s edition of AfricArena saw more than 80 startups presenting to over 100 investors with 25 countries being represented and over $2M worth of deals done. This year's edition saw 70 startups from 32 countries pitching to over 600 attendees. This year they are predicting that funding for African startups will crack US$1 billion. Earlier this year AfricArena launched a global tour to source the world's best tech innovators solving uniquely African problems, and the tour covered 66 000 kilometers in total. AfricArena is the ultimate deal-flow platform, bringing investors and startups together in one central location.

For more information visit: https://africarena2018.com

AfricArena, Silicon Cape and Wesgro host expert discussion and release research indicating funding raised by African startups to increase by 100%+, exceeding $1 billion for the first time.

Tuesday, 30 October, Cape Town – In the wake of the SA Investment Conference that took place last week, AfricArena, Wesgro and Silicon Cape hosted a press conference at the InvestSA One Stop Shop in Cape Town, making public new partnerships for the conference and discussing the role conferences and accelerators like AfricArena play in attracting investment to the continent.

Partech Ventures’ latest annual funding report shows that venture capital funding in 2017 reached $560 million, recording 53% year on year growth. South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria dominate with 6% of total funding. Francophone Africa is accelerating with 14% of the deal transactions and financial inclusion (off-grid tech, fintech and insuretech) representing 45% of deals.

The track record shows the trend is that African tech entrepreneurs are raising more and more funding. Yet, the amount of investment going to African tech startups represents less than $50c per capita whilst in Europe the investment is $50 per capita in the USA $150. Currently, less than 1% of global tech investment is into Africa whereas on the global scene, in 2017 the USA attracted $74 billion, Asia $71 billion and Europe nearly $18 billion.

“If we are to create the next generation of successful entrepreneurs competing at a global scale – clearly the challenge remains as an input and output measure to increase the level of capita that African startups attract,” states Christophe Viarnaud, CEO of AfricArena and Methys. ““It is predicted that in 2050 and 2100, there will be more than 50 cities with more than one million people on the African continent, and the majority of the most highly populated cities in the world will be in Africa. This is a very important factor in terms of being a fundamental underlying trend which is going to drive increasing investment in Africa, therefore we foresee the investment in African tech startups to exceed the $10 billion annual mark in the next decade.”

Based on internal research conducted in 2018, AfricArena, Silicon Cape and Wesgro expect the funding raised by African startups to increase by 100%+, exceeding $1 billion for the first time and achieve $1 dollar per capita, positioning Africa as the fastest growing area in the world.

“Another interesting thing is the emphasis we put on taking our startups to the bigger stages outside of the continent,” adds Danai Musandu, Investment Associate, Goodwell Investments BV, “You always find more people rushing to go to Silicon Valley to go see where the big stage and the content is. But we need to have a change of perspective and a change of attitude, where people will say ‘We’re going to Africa, where the big stage of the future is’. The biggest barrier is our perspective and we need to change that perspective.”

AfricArena is a pan-African ecosystem accelerator whose mission is to help African startups access market and capital. The primary outcome measure is investment deals done around the event.

AfricArena 2018 Announcements

Over 70 start ups from over 30 countries will attend, competing in 11 open innovation challenges

In partnership with We Think Code, AfricArena will run a hackathon on a mobility challenge for the City of Cape Town

EM Lyon, a world-ranked business school, joins as academic partner and will stream AfricArena live on its Casablanca, Lyon and Singapore campuses

Over 100 investors from US, Europe, Africa will attend or follow on the live streaming of the pitch sessionsAfricArena announced partnership with Deep Tech platform ‘Hello Tomorrow’ and a Deep Tech Africa challenge that will take place on Day 2 of AfricArena.

Silicon Cape members to receive early bird special of 50% off AfricArena tickets 

EM Lyon is an international business school priding themselves in “making entrepreneurs for Africa”. They capitalize on the worldwide-recognized experience and quality of their programs and offer both students and corporations content that is tailored to their context and to their problems. EM Lyon is fully in line with their signature "early maker": a school that tries, investigates and innovates far ahead of others.

Hello Tomorrow organises mentorship programs and a series of events around the world, as well as educating and consulting relevant stakeholders on emergence of deep technologies with the platform fast becoming a key reference in deeptech innovation and entrepreneurship.

Sarah Pedroza, Managing Director of Hello Tomorrow, states: “Deeptech innovation happening today knows no borders. But the opportunities and resources to catalyze these solutions are unevenly distributed. We need to give better tools to deeptech entrepreneurs in ecosystems that are booming, connecting them to a global network of industry leaders, investors and policy makers in order to bring their concepts to market. We’re excited to partner with AfricArena, joining their flagship event in one of the biggest tech hubs in Africa, which is a great opportunity to bring key stakeholders together.”

Finalists for the internationally sponsored challenges were also announced:

VINCE ENERGIES CHALLENGE – How to make energy more accessible in Africa thanks to energy efficiency solutions, energy flows optimization blockchain and/or AI - Rensource (Nigeria), BIG POT – Nigeria, Oniriq – Senegal

SAINT-GOBAIN CHALLENGE – A solution to upgrade professionals’ skills across Africa - Syafunda (South Africa), The Student Hub (South Africa), Ceed Learning (South Africa)

VIVATECH CHALLENGE – How AI can help generate a self-sustaining growth in the AgriTech industry - Agrocenta (Kenya), Homefarm (South Africa), Aerobotics (South Africa)AfricArena will take place on 15 & 16 November.

More information available at www.africarena2018.com

-- ENDS --

For more information on AfricArena or this press release, please contact:

Mika Stanvliet | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | 081 534 6237 

About AfricArena:

Celebrated as the largest tech ecosystem accelerator on the African continent, last year’s edition of AfricArena saw more than 80 startups presenting to over 100 investors with 25 countries being represented and over $2M worth of deals done. The conference serves as a platform for the continent’s best startups and innovators to showcase their world-class talent in front of an audience of both local and international investors. AfricArena is the ultimate deal-flow platform, bringing investors and startups together in one central location.

The challenges run by AfricArena are sponsored by Vinci Energies, AirFrance, Engie, Sanofi, Leroy Merlin, the City of Cape Town and RCS.

The conference is anchored and endorsed by corporate sponsors and partners La French Tech, Silicon Cape, Wesgro, SEDA, and will be covered by several media such as Techcrunch, Les Echos, Maddyness, Fast Company and many others.