Alumni raise over $11 million in seedfunding within four years

Harry Hare, executive director, DEMO Africa, disclosed at this years’ DEMO Africa event held in Lagos, late last week, that the platform has raised over $11 million in seedfunding, business value and acquisition deals within four short years.

Hare said that since the platform started on 2012, the event has witnessed significant strides in the quality of technology startups that have been emerging across the continent.

“In just four shirt years, our alumni have raised over $11million in seed funding, business value and acquisition deals. Examples from last year’s cohort include Valuraha, Trafficbytes, Space-pointe, Irofit, Cube and the Pearl Dream company. All have made significant progress and broke headlines and their accomplishments since their public launch on the DEMO Africa stage. For example Weza Tele, a DEMO Africa 2012 Alumni, that was acquired by AFD for $1.7million in May 2015. This exit has been listed among the most successful in the African technology scene and hints to the many success stories now in the making. Indeed, we are witnessing the birth of many new products and services that are serving both local and global markets,” Hare said.

“The success of these individuals,” Hare added, “and their endurance and drive to succeed, are an inspiration for all of us to push forward. We are seeing more investor interest than ever before, and from both local and international investors. We are seeing a growing amount of support from corporate sponsors and increased engagement from African governments. The continued commitment of these stakeholders is the cornerstone to the growth of our innovation and entrepreneurship driven activities across the continent.”

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Also speaking at the event, Peter Jack, director general, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) said he was delighted by the resilience of techpreneurs to support the fight for Africa-generated solutions.

Eight startups represented Nigeria at the event, same as the number of startups that represented Kenya, South Africa had three representatives, while Ghana, Egypt and Zimbabwe had two each. Uganda, Tanzania, and the Ivory Coast were all represented by one startup each.