news - AfricArena and FMO Ventures expanded partnership to bring more value to Africa’s fast-growing tech ecosystem

AfricArena and FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank, are thrilled to announce that they are expanding their partnership through the FMO Ventures Program to support Africa’s fast-growing tech ecosystem.

After an initial year of partnering in 2022 on AfricArena’s Tour across the continent, FMO Ventures Program is once again supporting AfricArena’s  events, namely: the AfricArena VC Unconference, the AfricArena Founders’ Bootcamp, the AfricArena Learning Expedition and the AfricArena Summit for the period spanning August 2023 - December 2024.

“We are very excited about this expanded partnership which supports the ecosystem development of AfricArena through its well known events across Africa,” said AfricArena CEO Christophe Viarnaud. “This partnership will contribute significantly to the development of the African VC industry through its VC Unconferences, and the development of open source investment tools for the African tech industry with the support of the Digital Collective Africa, a community for investors.”  

According to a Statista report*, there are over 640 tech hubs in Africa, which serve as the continent’s backbone for its rapidly growing tech ecosystem that is attracting investors from within Africa and globally. There has been a huge influx of interest in the last few years from investors, angel investors, venture capitalists, venture funds, corporate funds, development finance and startups in what Africa’s tech ecosystem has to offer, and this interest shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. 

“It is a thrilling time for investors to be looking at Africa as an investment destination, as many of the continent’s tech startups are coming forward with investment-worthy innovative solutions for global challenges,” says FMO Ventures Program Manager, Marieke Roestenberg. “Our partnership with AfricArena is a good fit with FMO Ventures Program’s broader strategy to support the development of entrepreneurial tech ecosystems across Africa. By bringing together tech startups, corporations, angel investors, venture capitalists and other institutional investors we aim to foster co-investment and collaboration that benefits the underserved on the African continent.”

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About FMO Ventures

The FMO Ventures Program is 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. FMO Ventures empowers innovative business models for impact through its focus on early stage, tech-enabled direct investments alongside a lead investor and indirect investments with a more generalist focus in funds. Through its Technical Assistance Facility, FMO Ventures provides the expertise to improve investees’ business operations, invest in inclusive business models, as well as provide broader support for a vibrant startup-environment in the regions where the program invests through investee investing, community engagement and entrepreneurial ecosystem building . FMO Ventures focuses on Fintech, Energy Access, AgriTech, and invests in generic funds. For more information about FMO Ventures, visit www.fmo.nl/ventures-program 

About AfricArena
AfricArena was launched as a platform in 2017 to support the creation of market access and investment opportunities for its ever-increasing community of founders, angel investors, corporates and VC investors. Designed with a digital approach in mind, AfricArena consists of a series of investment deal flow events and interventions and an open-source platform for all stakeholders, all based on principles of open innovation and entrepreneurship. The AfricArena brand has rapidly gained enormous credibility in the tech startup ecosystem with alumni startups having raised over $500 million in the past six years. The AfricArena Summit events are broken into three segments as follows: Investor Unconference, Founder’s BootCamp, and the main Summit Event. For more information about AfricArena, visit www.africarena.com