Business magnate Dr. James Mwangi, MD and CEO of Equity Group Holdings, and Arch Angel Esther Dyson, executive founder of Wellville, will keynote the 9th Angel Fair Africa (AFA) on 25th November 2021 in Port Louis, Mauritius. Chanzo Capital has partnered with the Africa India Entrepreneurship Forum (AIEF) and Future Female Invest to host this year’s physical event which would be followed by the AIEF on the 26th of November 2021 at the Hennessey Park Hotel in the Ebene Cyber City. Selected entrepreneurs for the event would participate in the second Africa Virtual Accelerator (AVA) from the 1st to 20th November 2021 put together by Chanzo Capital in partnership with the Adei Technology Hub. They would then arrive in Port Louis to participate in the Entrepreneurs Bootcamp from the 22nd to 24th November 2021.
On the morning of 25th November 2021, Dr. James Mwangi would rise with the sun as he tells the room of investors and entrepreneurs how he built Equity Bank from a building society, number 66 out of 66 banks in Kenya to the leading financial institution in East and Central Africa. Esther Dyson would close the day in a fireside chat sharing her gems of wisdom on investing in Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicio.us, Evernote, Flickr, 23andMe, Omada Health, BAMF Health, Ilara Health, Meetup, Square etc. and her recent focus on health equity with the founding of Way to Wellville. Esther has also invested in African startups such as Rasello, Nomanini, Angaza, Swvl and Trella.
The event, which has been held in Johannesburg (SA) 2013, Lagos (Nigeria) 2014, Accra (Ghana) 2015, Nairobi (Kenya) 2016, Abidjan (Ivory Coast) 2017, Maputo (Mozambique) 2018, Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) 2019 and Senegal (virtually) – in 2020 resulted in about $23M USD worth of deals and 1 exit, and will this year bring investors, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem players to the island of Mauritius to do deals, network and share experiences whiles observing the COVID protocols.
Baljinder Sharma, Founder of AIEF said, “there is a growing pollination between the Africa and India tech and investment ecosystems so having the AFA back-to-back with the AIEF would strengthen this healthy development that could lead to mergers, acquisitions and investments”.
According to Aysha Tegally, Co-Founder of Future Female Invest and Future Females Invest Angels, “Mauritius is establishing itself not only as an offshore financial centre but an investment destination with a lot of substance being built in various sectors including the tech sector. AFA is helping to spotlight the country in that regard, and we are excited to be partnering to make the event a success”.
Ian Ziddah, Operating Partner of Chanzo Capital, indicated that “as more and more people are getting vaccinated and the global economy is opening up again, we are excited to bring our annual AFA to Mauritius in partnership with the Mauritius Economic Development Board who have approved the event on the calendar of activities for the year end”.