The Grand Summit Spotlight: Every year, AfricArena invites the key tech investors in Africa to connect and workshop around their main challenges. More than 100 investors, from Africa, Europe and Asia decent upon Cape Town to attend our annual Grand Summit.

 Since its inception in 2017, AfricArena has been a platform dedicated to supporting the creation of market access and investment opportunities for its ever-increasing community of founders, angels, corporates, and VC investors. Designed...

This episode is a showcase episode on one of our ecosystem partners FMO, the dutch entrepreneurial development bank about their Ventures Program - a EUR 200 million investment program supported by contributions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and a guarantee from the European Union with a 4-year investment period. We caught up with Robert Haynie and Marike Roestenberg at our Dakar Summit to see what brought them to Senegal and what they're up to.

Hello beautiful people, welcome to SEASON 6 of the AfricArena podcast, and what an epic journey its been. To kick off this season, I’m going to take us back to Dakar, to the beautiful conference space at hotel Terrou bi where we hosted our latest West African Summit. Throughout the conference I chatted various stakeholders in our ecosystem to gather their insight into on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting frontier tech ecosystem, of Dakar. Massive thanks to our partner's DER,...

Today we caught up for a brief chat with Kohei Muto, the CEO, Founding Partner at Double Feather Partners one of AfriCArena's partners for the investor unconference part of the grand summit. Double Feather Partners is a corporate finance & strategic advisory firm with a VC Investment arm providing comprehensive support to innovative African companies with strong social impacts. We managed to catch Kohei after the unconference to get his views on the ecosystem and hear what they are up...

Today, we're sitting with Sacha Haider who is an investment associate at Global Ventures. Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm, investing in founders and ideas across emerging markets. They back global-minded founders that are leading growth-stage companies and using technology to transform emerging markets and the world. Global Ventures is made up of a super great team of a diverse, collaborative, talented, and curious group of professionals who, combined, have years of...

Today, we're sitting with Papa Amadou who is the Minister, General Delegate for Entrepreneurship in Senegal, an initiative called the DER. The DER is a fund of 30 billion FCFA ($50 million USD) launched by the President of Senegal to catalyze entrepreneurship all around [Senegal](https://www.ictworks.org/tag/Senegal/), targeting youth up to 40 years and women from 18 years old and up, with no age limit. Announced in Sept 2017 and formally launched in April 2018, the fund...

Today, we're catching up with Grace Legodi the Africa Director of Grindstone Ventures as well as Philippe Mourrain, founder of Amiliros, a consulting and investment co, and professor of Psychiatry, Behavioural & Neural Science at Stanford University. First up we chat to Grace, from Grindstone Ventures - a female-led fund that invests in and supports post-seed, pre-series A equity (incl. quasi-equity) investments. Our focus is on early-stage innovation-driven and/or technology...

Today, we're sitting with Zachariah George, the founder, and partner of Launch Africa Ventures and Startup Bootcamp. Launch Africa Ventures is Africa's leading venture capital fund that solves the significant gap in Seed to Series A investments across the continent. They back startups across multiple regions, sectors, and products, all of whom tackle the most meaningful challenges on the continent through technology and innovation. When he is not launching African ventures, or on an...

Today, we're sitting with Yasmin Larbi who is the communications officer at Expertise France as well as Wassiem Ben Larbi, the well-known radio presenter, TV host, and entrepreneur from Tunis. Expertise France is a public agency and a key actor in international technical cooperation. It designs and implements projects that sustainably strengthen public policies in developing and emerging countries. Governance, security, climate, health, education… It operates in key areas of sustainable...

Today, we're sitting with Matsi Modise - a lady of many hats and but for this interview, she is the founder who is the founder of Furaha Afrika Holdings. Established in 2013, Furaha Afrika Holdings is a progressive Pan-African organization dedicated to enabling and leveraging growth across the African continent. By forming strategic partnerships with like-minded dynamic organizations that seek to move Africa forward, they unearth opportunities for meaningful investments – both in the...

Today, we're sitting with Hiba S Sharief who is CxO & Startup Advisor | Global Thought Leader | Intersection of Innovation & Humanity | Investor and Board Member She is a lady of many hats and but for this interview, she is the founder and chief strategy officer at Elevoro. Elevoro is an inclusive community of global leaders that elevate human potential and drive positive change. We orchestrate connections between companies, experts, and investors with common values and goals. We...

Today, we're sitting with Salma Baghdadi who is the Startup ecosystem director at Smart Capital the operator of a fantastic initiative called startup Tunisia. Startup Tunisia is the name of the national program aiming to make Tunisia a country of Startups at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, the MENA region, and Africa. This program is powered by Smart Capital, the company in charge of developing the Tunisian entrepreneurial galaxy by implementing all the components of Startup...

Today/s featured start-ups are all startups we met at our North African summit who are each doing some incredible work in their respective countries. First we will chat with Hassan Haider who is Data Analytics Manager at Tirhal, a ride-hailing app en route to becoming a super app in Sudan. Then we chat with Alex from Shipzer, SAAS software company to manage empty container depots. Lastly, we catch up with Ida, from Mytindy a marketplace in North Africa that connects buyers to the many...

Today, we're sitting with Dr. Fawaz and Namek Zu bi who are the managing partners at Silicon Badia. They are a venture capital firm that partners with passionate, bold entrepreneurs to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. We caught up with Dr. Fawaz and Namek at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the continent in regards to their Africa-focused fund and get their take on the North African ecosystem. Please excuse the sound quality of this...

Today, we're sitting with Cyrine Ben Fadhel who is an investment associate at Global Ventures. Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm, investing in founders and ideas across emerging markets. They back global-minded founders that are leading growth-stage companies and using technology to transform emerging markets and the world. Global Ventures is made up of a super great team of a diverse, collaborative, talented, and curious group of professionals who, combined, have years...

Welcome back If you're joining us for the first time, this podcast is a series of conversations and debates where we unpack the latest trends & insights within the African Tech ecosystem. Our mission is to capture the many stories that are shared, the lessons learned, and to openly chat about both the challenges and the vast opportunity that exists within the major tech ecosystems on this incredible continent of Africa. Each year, we travel to West, East, North, and Southern Africa to...

This conversation with Thierry Barbaut was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with Lin Dejean Yun was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with Tosin Adelowo was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with Zachariah George was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with thierno sakho was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with Mubarak Sumaila was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...

This conversation with Tosin Adelowo (Chekkit) was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out...

This conversation with Youma Fall was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar. Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this...