New Nordic Initiative Connects Young African Entrepreneurs with Nordic Business Angels
At the online ‘Funding 101’ event on July 1st, funding professionals will be talking about angel investing with young African entrepreneurs.
Ambitious Africa has created super-connectivity between bright young people from the Nordics and Africa so they can solve local problems in African countries and drive change together. The initiative is working to heighten visibility of African startups in the Nordics through cross-continental online networking events. “This is an opportunity to invest in scalable startups with a social impact” says Ronny Eriksson, co-founder of the initiative.
Ambitious Africa is a new initiative founded by young Finnish people which brings together driven youth across the cultures and borders of Africa and the Nordics who are hungry for change. When COVID-19 hit, the initiative turned a challenge into an opportunity. Its founders realised they could easily bring people together from these two parts of the world, as online meetings quickly became the norm. They kickstarted the initiative in April through a series of online matchmaking events. Ambitious Africa is already established in ten African countries. Nine more are in the works. The ambition is to have established national teams in all fifty-four African countries by autumn.
Solution-focused matchmaking events with Ambitious Africa’s national teams
Through the events African entrepreneurs can expand their networks and showcase startups to potential investors. The African countries involved each form a national youth-driven team. Every team has their own event or ‘national day’, where the country representatives and participants, which include entrepreneurs, government officials, educators and investors, zoom in on country-specific challenges. During the event, solutions to the challenges are brainstormed. Nordic companies that already have solutions to problems discussed during the event are then connected to a country in Africa. If there is no existing solution, novel impact projects are started that feed off the collaboration between the Nordic and African youth. The first national day event for Kenya reached 500 participants.
The first global matchmaking summit - aimed at all countries, was held at the end of May. The next global matchmaking summit will take place July 16th. The initiative will also continue to hold national days and global matchmaking summits throughout the summer. From the second week of June there will be about three or four national days a week, kickstarting each new country’s involvement in the initiative. Any of these events are a great way to learn more about what is offered and get a feel for Ambitious Africa’s dynamic network. They are open for the business angel community.
Check out the events calendar here
A mutually beneficial exchange between Africa and the Nordics
Supporting Africa by sharing Nordic solutions is a sustainable way of empowering young African entrepreneurs to realise their ideas, according to the initiative. It allows for mutually beneficial exchanges between the countries where cultural differences can be used as an advantage for creating new solutions. The ethos of Ambitious Africa is based on the understanding that African countries are capable of solving their own problems and providing value to the Nordics.
The initiative focuses on problem-solving using the latest insights in the areas education, entrepreneurship and entertainment, which Ambitious Africa sees as some of the Nordics’ core strengths. The knowledge and experience gained from the positive results the Nordics have seen in these areas can be harnessed to enrich African countries, says Ronny Eriksson. The goal is to create conditions and opportunities for young people in Africa which will propel the societies forward in a progressive, peaceful and playful way, without taking away from their cultures and traditions.
Current projects
The Ambitious Africa network stretches within a range of different industries, such as agriculture. In Rwanda, Ambitious Africa stands behind innovative agri-startups such as HydroFeeds In Rwanda, the animal feed which farmers use to raise cattle is expensive because it is usually imported. HydroFeeds has developed a system that allows farmers to effectively grow their own wheat-based feed in their own backyards regardless of the season. The system uses minimal resources and reduces farmers’ costs by up to 51%, leaving them with more money to sustain their businesses and feed communities.
Another industry Ambitious Africa has a strong foothold in is game industry. Douglas Ogeto, a representative from Team Kenya, is the founder of a video game publishing company called LudiqueWorks. They have partnered with institutions for higher learning to engage youth using impact games to make learning more fun and motivating. Beyond that, the initiative has a growing number of incubators, accelerators and forward-thinking education projects all over Africa.
New kinds of opportunities for angel investors
Ambitious Africa is a growing portal for Nordic and other European investors to find investment opportunities in new territories and emerging markets. Ambitious Africa is not limited to one particular industry. The focus always lies on impact. The initiative will help its associated African startups streamline their products to Finnish and European business networks using the Startup Includer platform, giving investors direct links to the startups.
There will be pitching events where investors can come in contact with pitches from Africa and get to know and interact with the teams and their solutions through one-on-one meetings. On July 1st Ambitious Africa will host a ‘Funding 101’ event where funding professionals will talk about angel investing with local young African entrepreneurs, with a matchmaking opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs at the end. Ambitious Africa is also hosting a weekend-long hackathon with similar opportunities for investors September 18-20.
Find out more about how to get involved by contacting one of the following people:
Ronny Eriksson, Co-founder
+358 50 5179 08 / LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikssonronny/
Vincent Forsman, Co-founder
+358 400 585 090 / LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-forsman007/
Maija Luukka, Core Team Member
+358 44 267 862 / LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luukka/
