New infographic focuses on Cape Town as startup capital of Africa

A new infographic has been released which shows why Cape Town is the startup capital of Africa. The report has been compiled with the efforts of the City of Cape Town, Invest Cape Town, Wesgro, CiTi and Silicon Cape.

The data has been compiled from a number of resources, such as the FNB Property Barometer, SAVCA 2015 Venture Capital Survey and World Economic Forum Global Rankings 2016.

“The resources clearly show why the Cape is the leading tech hub in Africa. It is because of our skills pipeline, which is unmatched on the continent, combined with the quality of life and infrastructure in the Cape, and our established funding and support institutions,” says CEO of Wesgro, Tim Harris, in a press release to Ventureburn.

“This means that we are the home to large tech corporates like Amazon Web Services and Naspers, and the largest set of tech startups in Africa.”

“The long-term economic impact of attracting international tech businesses to the Cape is significant for the region and the country. Beyond the obvious inflow of financial resources, it will make it easier for our local startups to attract local and international investment,” adds Harris.

Some interesting insight from the data:

• 60% of the population is under the age of 35
• SA has the largest telecoms market in Africa with over 150% penetration
• Over 25 Cape Town headquartered companies are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange
• Cape Town accelerators support 10 to 15 startups per annum
• 65% of VC transactions were related to tech in 2015

“The open sharing of this information and material is important because it means that many more people in the extended ecosystem can confidently speak about what the Cape has to offer and why it is the leading tech hub. The more voices we have sharing this message, the more impact we will have,” writes the director of Silicon Cape, Alex Fraser.

The items are released under the Creative Commons BY-SA licence in order for anyone to use. According to Fraser, the data has already been used for a number of trade delegations, as well as the mission to Silicon Valley in October 2016.

“We presented them to Roelof Botha of Sequoia and received positive feedback. Which, as you can imagine, was very rewarding,” says Fraser.

Click here [PDF] to view the Cape Town Tech Sector Slide Deck 2017.

Click here [PDF] to view the Cape Town Tech Sector Infographic 2017.