Olusegun Aganga, Nigeria’s Federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment will keynote the inaugural Angel Fair West Africa (AFWA), a major platform bringing together entrepreneurial businesses and active investors across the continent.
Organisers said that AFWA will bring the investor community across Africa to “do deals” at the Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos. The two-day event opens today.
“To have the Minister Aganga keynote this event is a welcome development because as the chief promoter of Nigeria’s huge potential for investment he has an enviable record of presiding over the most significant growth in private sector non-oil investments into the country in recent history so I am sure both investors and entrepreneurs will be happy to hear his views” Tomi Davies of Lagos Angel Network (LAN), says.
The event will have 20 specially selected early stage businesses pitching to investors from LAN, Angel Africa List (AAL), Ghana Angel Investor Network (GAIN) and the Africa Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA).
The businesses include Prowork, a locally developed project management solution from Nigeria, Djoss.tv, a social platform for live interaction with TV from Cameroon and Farmerline, a mobile application that integrates agricultural output of rural farmers, from Ghana.
The pitches will be interspersed with investors and entrepreneurs panels with active investors and successful entrepreneurs sharing their experiences and expertise with the audience in interactive sessions.
Fatumata Soukouna of Soft Solutions, Folabi Esan of Adlevo Capital, Sangu Delle of Golden Palm Investments, Maurizio Caio of TLCom and Eghosa Omoigui of Echo VC Partners are some of those on the Investors panel, which will be moderated by Wiebe Boer of TEF.
Femi Akinde of Slimtrader, Tayo Ogundipe of Solo Phone, Kofi Dadzie of Rancard Solutions and Alex Bram of SMSGH, are some of the panelist for the Entrepreneurs session, which will be moderated by Segun Olukoya of Nextzon.
“The event has built considerable momentum and all is coming together well for what will make for “doing great deals” this weekend,” Eric Osiakwan of AAL adds.