AfricArena predicts funding raised by African startups in 2018 will crack $1bn

The amount of venture capital (VC) funding raised by African startups this year could for the first time exceed the $1-billion mark. So, predict the organisers of AfricArena, which runs an annual tech startup conference.

Ahead of this year’s conference, which takes place on 15 and 16 November in Cape Town, AfricArena said in a statement yesterday (30 October) that its prediction is based on internal research the organisation conducted earlier this year with Silicon Cape and Wesgro.

Like this, it expects the funding raised by African startups to increase by over 100%.

Commenting today (31 October) on the prediction, AfricArena CEO Christophe Viarnaud (pictured above) said he was very confident of the prediction.

“It’s based on AfricArena internal research and deal tracking but we are very confident about it, having confirmed our findings with some of our partners such as French public investment bank BPI France,” he said.

AfricArena predicts that venture capital funding raised by African startups in 2018 will increase by over 100% and could for the first time exceed $1-billion

Earlier this year, Partech Ventures revealed that in 2017 African tech startups raised $560-million in VC funding through 128 rounds. In 2016, the VC firm reported that African startups had raised $366.8-million.

AfricArena announcements

On Monday (29 October), AfricArena revealed during a press conference in Cape Town that it expects over 70 startups from more than 30 countries to compete in 11 open innovation challenges at the event.

The organisers expect that over 100 investors from US, Europe and Africa will attend or follow on the live streaming of the pitch sessions. In addition, the summit will be streamed live by AfricArena academic partner, French business school Em Lyon on its campuses in Casablanca, Lyon and Singapore.

AfricArena will, during the summit hold a Deep Tech Africa challenge in partnership with non-profit Hello Tomorrow. The organisation also announced that, in partnership with tech institution We Think Code, it will run a hackathon on a mobility challenge for the City of Cape Town.

Read more: AfricArena signs up AFD subsidiary Proparco as strategic partner, sponsor

Featured image: AfricArena CEO Christophe Viarnaud (Supplied)