BRITER BRIDGES
Investors
Investors play a vital role in the growth of ecosystems. They can provide funding and other value adds to startups including mentorship, market access, and even validation of ideas. This study considers investors across all stages of development, from angel networks to seed funds, to venture capital and even corporate venture arms. Investment into the continent has risen over the past few years, with startups that leverage deep-tech products raising a cumulative of $648 million just in 2021 alone. Despite this, there are very few investors that have a targeted deep-tech focus in the region. Most investors operate agnostically or target specific sectors, such as agriculture, fintech or e-commerce and as a result may have invested in some of these startups that leverage deep-tech for their products
Corporates
Corporates have been important partners for startups. Given the long R&D phase and the general lack of specialised programmes that cater to deep-tech startups, corporates active in the industry are well suited to provide expertise. There are also catalysts of co- creation programmes between startups and corporates including conferences.
EVALUATING THE AFRICAN DEEP-TECH STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
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