Entrepreneurs are seeking investors. Investors are seeking entrepreneurs. Both groups know the other are out there, but connecting is the trick. Africa’s technology startup ecosystem is still nascent and peculiarly opaque, making it hard for serious players on both sides to find each other. Thus, on the 30th and 31st of March, 2014, investors from all over and outside of Africa will touch down in Lagos to meet startups and “do deals” under the banner of Angel Fair West Africa .
AFWA is organised by the Angel Africa List (AAL) in partnership with the Lagos Angel Network (LAN) and the African Venture Capital Association (AVCA).
The event’s format boils down to two main segments. A pitch session when entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to present their businesses and a networking session where investors can then make bee-lines to the startups piqued their interest during the pitch.
Online platforms like VC4Africa have helped to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs looking for financing, and financiers looking for opportunity, but increasingly we are seeing the bridge building being deliberately brought down to the ground. While DEMO Africa made its entrance via East Africa, Angel Fair debuted in South Africa, last year. Both events are coming to West Africa in 2014. And it isn’t strange that both have chosen to make their West Africa touchdown in Nigeria, which is not only Africa’s largest market — Nigeria’s economy is set to eclipse South Africa’s shortly — but also a vigorously boiling cauldron of entrepreneurial and innovative intent.
To view the official release and learn more, visit the Angel Fair West Africa website.
