Nigeria is ranked second with six startups among the 30 finalists picked for the finals of 2016 DEMO Africa billed to hold in South Africa.
[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”]Also, the organisers said the DEMO Africa Top 30 have raised $8M in funding, making it the largest startup launch event on the African continent.[/quote]Organisers of the2016 DEMO Africa announced that Nigeria made the finals list from a record 723 technology startups from 27 African countries that applied to launch at the event.
The 2016 DEMO Africa, which will hold in South Africa from August 25 and 26 has South Africa topping the list of startups with 11, Kenya 5, and Ghana 3. Other countries with participating startups include Egypt, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Morocco which is being represented in the continental event for the first time.

Harry Hare, DEMO Africa Executive Producer while congratulating the finalists says “the entries this year certainly kept up with the DEMO Africa spirit to produce innovative and creative ideas that are bound to transform the technology landscape and we are excited by the growth of innovation and technological advancement in Africa as portrayed by our finalists.”
DEMO Africa is one of the flagship initiatives of LIONS@frica and aims to connect African startups to the global ecosystem.
DEMO Africa is the place where the most innovative companies from African countries get a platform to launch their products and announce to Africa and the world what they have developed.
According to the event organizers, this year’s DEMO Africa Conference will be hosted by the City of Johannesburg in partnership with South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology and the LIONS partners.
The number of participants is expected to be double last year that had more than 500 participants in the innovation and entrepreneurship from across the world congregate in Lagos, Nigeria for two days of launches, talks and networking.
Also, the organizers said the DEMOAfrica Top 30 have raised $8M in funding, making it the largest startup launch event on the African continent.
The 30 finalist startups have products in 11 verticals including logistics, retail, e-commerce, education, banking and finance, media, renewable energy, health and agriculture. Banking and financial technologies had the highest number of entries followed by media, e-commerce and education.