Three Ugandan companies to showcase innovations at Angel Fair Trade Africa
Three Ugandan companies will represent the country at the 4th Angel Fair Trade Africa where they will showcase their innovations.
Angel Fair Africa is an event that brings together accelerators, incubators and emerging businesses from across the African continent and investors to do deals.
The three companies; YakaKo Ltd, Poketi Ltd and Akello Banker Ltd in the ICT sector, were submitted for rigorous competition for Angel funds by Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), which promotes a number of bankable projects for investment.
Ms Sheila Mugyenzi Uganda Investment Authority’s Deputy Director Communications said: “We look forward to continue facilitating the three companies when they return.”
She said that they hope for a breakthrough for all or any of the companies.
“Their projects have the potential to greatly enhance movement of funds between service providers and consumers as well as ease microfinance operations,” Ms Mugyenzi said.
A total of twenty entrepreneurs; which are either startups or scale-ups ,have been selected from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa through the Angel Fair Africa partnership network, of which UIA is a member.
Recognition
During the event, the three companies will get the opportunity to not only pitch their pitch their businesses / ideas, giving investors the opportunity to prioritize those they want to meet.
“The companies will also get the opportunity to network with investors who are backing Africa’s leading entrepreneurs to build great companies. This opportunity gives the companies a platform to explore investment, business development and other opportunities,” Ms Mugyenzi shared.
According to a communiqué from Angel Fair Africa (AfA) issued, Mr Chris Kirubi, who is among the 40 richest people in Africa, is among the key note speakers at the event.
There will also be an all-female panel on the first day to boost women particpation in business.
An “Exits Panel” featuring Njeri Rionge who co-founded Wananchi and exited to East Africa Capital Partners, Hilda Moraa who exited Weza Tele to AFB last year, Munyutu Waigi who exited Rupu to Ringier AG and multi-exits entrepreneur, Chinedu Echeruo who sold Tripology to USA Today and Hopstop to Apple then co-founded Constant Capital based in New York; will share their experiences of building their companies from scratch and exiting to motivate those pitching.
AfA was successfully held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2013, Lagos, Nigeria in 2014 and Accra, Ghana in 2015, resulting in a number of deals such as Bertha Foundation investing in Vuyos. The Lagos Angels Network invested in Hutbay and Autobox while, Zeepay announced their first seed investment at the Accra event last year.
Other partners include: SeedStars World, Demo Africa, Financial Sector Deepening Trust Tanzania, Ice Addis, Vilgro Kenya, Centum Foundation, K-Lab and Unreasonable Institute.
