Africa is at the start of a technological renaissance. Last year, it was estimated that African startups raised a record-breaking total of $366.8 million in investment, with the top 10 destinations being Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Uganda.
The PitchDrive competition selected 14 of Africa’s top startups to go on a tour through Europe to raise capital and awareness. PitchDrive is organized by the Nigerian innovation space CcHUB, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs. PitchDrive is a tour through exciting tech cities in Europe (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich and Paris) to pitch to investors, explore international opportunities and learn about frontier technology markets. On Wednesday August 23rd the startups came to Berlin to meet investors and actors of the local ecosystem. They were hosted by GIG the Global Innovation Gathering, an international organization that supports exchange between innovators from across the world.
In cooperation with the PitchDrive team from CCHub, GIG organized the group’s stay in Berlin including a number of meetings at places like Betahaus, the Place, and Rocket Internet as well as an open pitch event at Impact Hub Berlin on Friday August 25th. Over 120 members of the Berlin startup ecosystem came to hear the startups pitch. The top 14: Kudobuzz, Piggybank, Gebeya, Tradedepot, Firefly Media, Ongair, Prepclass, GoMetro, Lifebank, BitFinance, Fashpa, ClinicMaster, Gloo and Real Food excited the Berlin crowd with their company presentations and business ideas.
The event helped expose the quality of digital business across the African continents to participants like Oliver Bey from etventure Startup Hub: “I must confess: I never really had a proper touch point with startups from Africa. This changed last Friday, when I met with 14 excellent teams from all across Africa, which stopped-by in Berlin.”
GIG was glad to support their members from CCHub and the startups on their tour. Next stop for PitchDrive is Zurich and Paris.
About PitchDrive:
The PitchDrive Berlin event is hosted by the Global Innovation Gathering and kindly supported by GIZ Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative ‘Make-IT in Africa’, Impact Hub Berlin and Enpact. CcHub document their journey in videos on their Facebook page.
