Now 10 days after TAS2015, what we retained and recommend – Questions and Answers about where the money is
During the Transform Africa 2015 event that took place in Kigali between 19 and 21 of october, we tried to let you know on a regular basis what was happening, especially on different panels.
Today, we have taken time to go through the published videos, thanks to the event organizers, in order to recommend a bunch of those we liked and recommend for further transformation of the African Digital World.
Investors are very interested in African startups and companies (mainly SMEs)…but more efforts need to be operated, among which the Business Plans, Company structuring, Market research that goes from local to global. In an environment where most of the capitals are still coming from the public sector and international donors, interested investors are seeking companies where they can invest tickets from 250 k US$ to a million. The gap is still too big! To know more about this, please see the video hereunder.
But where is that money? The answer to the question came with much additional information as for the necessity to scale-up local businesses in order to gain a critical size, opening local businesses to cross-border business with a typical example from Tigo Financial services. Of course, all of these opportunities come along with new challenges, that when addressed, will add more value to African startups, and from there gain more interest from investors.
Our teams retained 3 main messages:
Regulators, along with all of the public authorities and their depending authorities and organizations are aware of the market size challenge and are already working on it – Good news
Money is in the place, all African startups and SMEs need is to scale-up and think global in a cross-border, glocal and organized approach;
Whatever the case, think of the delivery of the value promised by your company, the idea can be common but the delivery model, combined with its business model, will always make a difference.
Have a nice watch and read.
