AfricaIgnite part of the Africa Tech Festival, a flagship event for the African continent’s startups and innovators, has been announced as the host for the African leg of the globally prestigious StartUp World Cup 2023, and 10 African startups will have the opportunity to pitch for a spot at the grand finale to be held in San Francisco, USA on 1 December 2023.
USD1 million up for grabs – The AfricaIgnite startup Pitch showcase will take place at Africa Tech Festival in November in Cape Town, South Africa. To enter, African early-stage startups and scale-ups with seed fundings of up to $15million will need to apply here by 15 October. The finalists, to be unveiled on 30 October, will then need to make their way to Cape Town and pitch in front of hundreds of investors and tech leaders on 16 November.
The winner of Africa Tech Festival’s pitch competition will then be invited to compete in the grand finale of the Startup World Cup, to be held in San Francisco on 1 December, for that impressive 1 million US dollar investment, in front of industry greats such as ABC’s Shark Tank Barbara Corcoran, Sundeep Jain, Chief Product Officer at Uber, Daniel Sturman CTO at Roblox and more.
Since launching in 2016, the festival’s startup platform has been committed to supporting the growth of Africa’s nascent entrepreneurs and innovators. The interest in the offering has grown significantly to the point where AfricaIgnite has now taken on a life-force of its own.
James Williams, Director, Events | Connecting Africa | Informa Tech said “Africa’s bright and forward-thinking minds need a platform to network, get inspired, and co-build a stronger tech startup investment ecosystem, which is exactly what AfricaIgnite offers. As Africa Tech Festival, we are excited to be partnering with The Startup World Cup to offer our African colleagues the opportunity they deserve to present their businesses on a global stage. This is a very exciting partnership, and the first, we hope, of many as the continent’s innovation sector gathers momentum.”
“We are very happy to partner up with AfricaTech Festival for the Startup World Cup South Africa Regional and are delighted by the quality and enthusiasm of the startups who are competing,” said Anis Uzzaman, Founder and CEO of Pegasus Tech Ventures, who created the Startup World Cup competition in 2016. “Each year we have been able to reach more entrepreneurs in more cities around the world and, in turn, connect more innovation ecosystems to Silicon Valley and the rest of the world.
“We hope this partnership creates new valuable opportunities for the competing startups from Africa.”
