Disruptive Businesses Looking to Raise $250K – $5M Can Now Apply for VC4A Venture Showcase (Series A)

VC4A Venture has opened the application for eight innovative, high-growth scale-ups to pitch at its fifth annual Africa Early Stage Investor Summit in Cape Town on 11-12 November 2018. This year’s event will bring together the continent’s early-stage investor community to exchange best practices, learn from peers and recent transactions, and do deals.

Last year’s edition of the event, which was co-organised by VC4A and the African Business Angels Network (ABAN), saw 20 startups who applied for VC4A Venture Showcase, take part in the World 4th XL Africa accelerator pitch. This year, the organisers are seeking eight startups to do same.

Eligibility Criteria

• Your company is for-profit and registered as an independent legal entity
  You have a product or service available on the market and generate revenue
  Your product or service is clearly innovative and/or your business model is new, disruptive and designed for scale
  You have a very strong management team of at least 3 people
  Your team is based in one or more countries on the African continent
  You are seeking Series A investment in the range of $250K – $5M
  While there will be exceptions, most likely your startup has already received external investment, structured as either debt or equity, or received grants from donor organisations

Selection Criteria

Innovativeness and Scalability (25%)

• The company must addresses a real problem in the market in a clearly innovative way
  Company product or service must be different to others in the industry.
  The business model is new, disruptive and designed for scale

Strategy for Growth (25%)

• There is potential to expand into new markets or expand at home
  A clear strategy on how to grow the company where demonstrable progress can be seen in terms of customer acquisition plans, new contracts, and key partnerships

Management team (25%): the team has the qualifications needed to make the business successful.

Market Traction & Financials (25%)

• Market traction would be evaluated and potential market size looked at.
  The business model, revenue streams and unit economics, and if any outside funding has been raised before would be considered.

Benefits

Selected participants will be offered;

• An all-expenses-paid trip to Cape Town on Nov 9-16, 2018
• 3 min pitch on the main stage of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit
• 20 min deep-dive session with investors in a private room
• Two days of networking with investors, including Speaker Cocktail and Industry Leaders dinner
• Mentorship and pitch training by partner VC investors
• Opportunity to attend and pitch at partner events AfricaCom and AfricArena

How to Apply

• If you run a disruptive scale up, you have until Monday, August 20, 2018, to apply for VC4A Venture Showcase – Series A via the official website.