AfricArena and FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank, are thrilled to announce that they are expanding
their partnership through the FMO Ventures Program to support Africa’s fast-growing tech ecosystem. After an initial year of partnering in 2022 on AfricArena’s Tour across the continent, FMO Ventures Program is once again supporting AfricArena’s events, namely: the AfricArena VC Unconference, the AfricArena Founders’ Bootcamp, the AfricArena Learning Expedition and the AfricArena Summit for the period spanning August 2023 – December 2024.

“We are very excited about this expanded partnership which supports the ecosystem development of AfricArena
through its well known events across Africa,” said AfricArena CEO Christophe Viarnaud. “This partnership will
contribute significantly to the development of the African VC industry through its VC Unconferences, and the
development of open source investment tools for the African tech industry with the support of the Digital Collective
Africa, a community for investors.”

According to a Statista report, there are over 640 tech hubs in Africa, which serve as the continent’s backbone for its
rapidly growing tech ecosystem that is attracting investors from within Africa and globally. There has been a huge
influx of interest in the last few years from investors, angel investors, venture capitalists, venture funds, corporate
funds, development finance and startups in what Africa’s tech ecosystem has to offer, and this interest shows no signs
of slowing down anytime soon.

“It is a thrilling time for investors to be looking at Africa as an investment destination, as many of the continent’s tech
startups are coming forward with investment-worthy innovative solutions for global challenges,” says FMO Ventures
Program Manager, Marieke Roestenberg.

The FMO Ventures Program is a EUR 200 million investment program supported by contributions from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and a guarantee from the European Union with a 4-year
investment period. FMO Ventures empowers innovative business models for impact through its focus on early
stage, tech-enabled direct investments alongside a lead investor and indirect investments with a more generalist
focus in funds.

AfricArena was launched as a platform in 2017 to support the creation of market access and investment
opportunities for its ever-increasing community of founders, angel investors, corporates and VC investors.
Designed with a digital approach in mind, AfricArena consists of a series of investment deal flow events and
interventions and an open-source platform for all stakeholders, all based on principles of open innovation and
entrepreneurship.