AfroVumbua: Linking African Innovators with investors around the world

Project overview:

AfroVumbua is a social and professional network bringing together high quality African innovators with investors from around the world on a single online platform. The platform is designed to help African technology entrepreneurs raise financing from both public and private investors. These include: angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity firms, non-profit foundations and other government and intergovernmental institutions.

AfroVumbua is  much more than an investment platform; it provides a great social network around business and technology in Africa. Innovators and start-ups can search for co-founders, mentors, employees and enter collaborations on technical issues. Users can also see what African innovators are developing – rate, review and comment on innovators, their companies and products and even get the latest in technology and business in Africa.

African Innovation Foundation (AIF) provided seed money to start AfroVumbua because AfroVumbua’s work is in line with AIF objective of connecting African innovators to the right kind of investments and contacts from around the world. We believe that these types of linkages are crucial in stimulating technological entrepreneurship in Africa and thus contributing to economic and social development on the continent. By supporting technology entrepreneurship, AfroVumbua is nurturing a new breed of tech-savvy African innovators that are developing novel tools that help different sectors of the African economy become: BETTER, FASTER and CHEAPER. This will further spur the growth of African economies and provide thousands of jobs to African youth that enter the job market every year.

Specifically, the AfroVumbua platform will serve the following purposes:

• Enable African innovators and entrepreneurs to establish a web presence showing their complete business and personal profiles;

• Allow innovators to create a database of their innovations (whether products or services);

• Enable innovators to initiate business dealings with investors and other strategic partners;

• Enable innovators to collaborate in resolving technical challenges;

• Provide tools and resources to help innovators achieve their business objectives;

• Enable general users to engage with innovators by providing feedback on the products and innovations

• Create a platform where people can source the latest news in business and technology in Africa;

For more information on AfroVumbua, please click on the following link:  http://afrovumbua.com/