Hosted from 30 to 31 August in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, more than 20 founders of African start-ups in the region will deliver investment pitches that can accelerate their business’ growth. The summit is held in partnership with the GIZ, Expertise France and Smart Capital.
GIZ is an international enterprise owned by the German government while Expertise France is the French international technical cooperation agency. Smart Capital, a management company approved by the Financial Markets Council, invests in innovative Tunisian SMEs.
Organisers say besides the start-up pitches, AfricArena’s two-day summit will also feature top speakers and panel discussions featuring A-list ecosystem thought leaders. While the speaker line-up is still being kept under wraps, Ventureburn has learnt that it includes some of North Africa’s finest business, tech and investment experts.
Start-ups are urged to register online as a series of virtual pitching sessions are set to commence in August already. Successful start-ups will then go through to the Tunisia summit to showcase their innovative tech and business solutions. Delegate tickets are also currently on sale.
“We are extremely excited to hold an exciting week of events starting with the AfricArena VC Unconference followed by the AfricArena North Africa Summit, which is going to assemble investors from the different corners of the region,” says Christophe Viarnaud, the founder of AfricArena and chief executive of technology firm Methys.
Two days before the Tunisia summit, selected start-ups will also be invited to take part in a day-long bootcamp facilitated by Startup Village, a community of start-ups and network partners with a focus on AI and Quantum, and The Dot, Tunisia’s leading hub for digital innovation and entrepreneurs.
Also, parallel to the founders bootcamp will be the much anticipated, invite-only North Africa Investor Unconference. This is where Africa-focused start-up investors and venture capitalists will take part in discussions and workshops centred around co-investing and how to ease the process in investing in tech start-ups on the continent. Between 20 to 30 investors are expected to attend.
AfricArena is a leading African tech ecosystem accelerator. Through a series of online and offline events, it accelerates the growth of tech start-ups and the ecosystems in which they operate by providing a platform where they can share their business models, gain valuable networks and attain funding.
A series of regional events
This year, AfricArena will organise four hybrid events across four regions in Africa, all building up to the annual AfricArena Summit in Cape Town at the end of the year. The regional events will bring together start-ups, investors and corporations operating in the region with more than 20 start-ups from the region being selected to pitch at the regional event.
While bringing invaluable awareness and networking opportunities to the region’s ecosystem, the events will also act as a semi-final pitch session, used to select start-ups to pitch at the Grand Summit in Cape Town in November 2022.
