In the wake of the SA Investment Conference that took place last week, AfricArena, Wesgro and Silicon Cape hosted a press conference at the InvestSA One Stop Shop in Cape Town, making public new partnerships for the conference and discussing the role conferences and accelerators like AfricArena play in attracting investment to the continent.

Partech Ventures’ latest annual funding report shows that venture capital funding in 2017 reached $560 million, recording 53% year on year growth. South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria dominate with 6% of total funding. Francophone Africa accelerating with 14% of deal transaction. Financial inclusion (off-grid tech, fintech and insuretech) represents 45% of deals.

Story from Business Report.

The track record shows the trend is that African tech entrepreneurs are raising more and more funding. Yet, the amount of investment going to African tech startups represents less than $50c per capita that goes into funding the future given that the highest employment opportunity is in emerging tech companies, whilst in Europe the investment is $50 per capita in the USA $150. Currently, less than 1% of global tech investment is into Africa whereas on the global scene, in 2017 the USA attracted $74 billion, Asia $71 billion and Europe nearly $18 billion.

“If we are to create the next generation of successful entrepreneurs competing at a global scale – clearly the challenge remains as an input and output measure to increase the level of capita that African startups attract,” states Christophe Viarnaud, chief executive of AfricArena and Methys.

Read more at Business Repor.