The 4th annual African Angel Investor Summit – #AAIS2017 – is set to be the next meeting point for Africa’s early-stage investor community. The place to be on November 15-16 will be Workshop 17, right in the middle of Cape Town’s vibrant startup scene. Key debates will be held around the critical role investors play in supporting startup teams to launch, scale and exit.
In previous editions of the summit, the importance of seed capital and strong collaboration within the ecosystem were discussed. This time the focus will be on the next steps of the investment cycle with the special theme: ‘Start-Scale-Exit, Funding great startup teams poised for global success’. 250 of the most relevant early-stage investors and key stakeholders will facilitate the exchange of best practices and plot the roadmap for the future of investing on the continent.
Program highlights
At #AAIS2017 there will be numerous keynotes, panel discussions, roundtables and interactive workshops given by industry leaders. To set the scene the most experienced experts will unwrap the current investment climate on the African continent. All the ins and outs of the $40M investment secured by Andela will be released by the main players in the latest Series C round. And participants are invited to join roundtables on Angel Investing and Startup Research to share latest insights. Furthermore, this is your chance to learn from and get inspired by 10 distinguished panels on the following topics:
State of Play: Current Investment Climate
Seed stage: First investor in…..
Addressing the gaps in the market to enable innovators across Africa to find the investment they need
Unlocking Diaspora & International capital to drive local entrepreneurship
Expanding from Africa to the world
Accelerating Startups to Scale-ups: How accelerators drive growth
Scaling for growth
Catalyzing smart capital for scale-ups
Investing with exits in mind
Are Impact Investors even in it for the Exit?
Throughout the 2-day event, the top 20 entrepreneurs from the XL Africa accelerator program will showcase their remarkable innovations and significant business traction. Also, the World Bank will organize their policy workshop where recommendations for future programs for scale and impact in Africa will be discussed.
Headlining the Summit are renowned international and local investors – with leading African Angels representing over 20 local Angel networks and investors expected to attend from Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Kenya, Liberia, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Somalia amongst many others. At the same time, corporate partners like Orange Telecom, Google, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Ringier, and Github will join the event together with senior representatives from the World Bank, the IFC, the AfDB and the EU.
Additionally, the ‘Cape Town Innovation Tour’ on November 17th aims to give participants an on the ground introduction to the ecosystem, access to the entrepreneurs and leaders building the sector. Book your ticket for the tour on AAIS2017.com or contact the organizers for further details: info@aais2017.com.
For more details on the various startups across Africa, open this XLAfricaPortfolio [PDF]