Dear Members,
We hope this e-mail finds you, your colleagues and families well and together for the holidays.
We have taken some key steps in our effort to establish VC4Africa as the most meaningful platform for investors and entrepreneurs dedicated to building ventures in Africa. We thought now was a good moment to take a quick step back and reflect on our progress to date.
Our community consists of more than 10.000 entrepreneurs and investors worldwide. Our network has facilitated 364 active forum discussions, promoted 157 events focused on business in Africa, hosted 38 country incubators and generated 886 blog postings. Our members have initiated VC4Africa meetups in Kampala, Nairobi, Kigali, Johannesburg, Lagos, Abuja, Tunis, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, London, Amsterdam and Leuven.
Central to our mission is the business of connecting entrepreneurs (and their powerful ideas) to the networks, expertise and capital they need to grow successfully. This year we not only saw the re-branding of VC4Africa but also the launch of our new matchmaking platform VC4Africa.biz. We currently have 66 ventures registered from 19 African countries open for funding.
Statistics aside, it’s your success stories that are the most important to us. We get really excited when we find out Brian from Next2.Us has found a distributor for his mobile service in Kenya or Rick from MarketFleas who has been contacted by an investor just three days after registering his plan. And we are really rooting for Valery who saw his inbox fill with e-mails from possible partners/investors after his recent interview was posted about his project Agro-Hub.
In the new year we look forward to working more intensively with these individuals and facilitating a host of new connections. We will be adding great functionality to the website and launching the VC4A mentorship program. We will be growing the network, adding new meetups and doing whatever we can to get more entrepreneurs the support they need. In the end it is our shared mission to see more success stories coming from the continent!
VC4Africa is only as strong as her members. None of this would have been possible without the continued support from our network. Specifically, I would like to thank our officers Eyembe Elango, Joel Patenaude, Ed Dodds, Lauri Elliot, Peter Johnson, Femi Animashaun and James Jones. I would also like to thank Bill Zimmerman, Valery Colong, Bart Lacroix, Ronald Kleverlaan, Gaudi Hoedaya, Joshua Wanyama, Bertil van Vugt, Peter Vlam, Arnout Kroezen, Bastiaan Reijntjes, Nick White, Jon Gosier, Michael Pentowski, Greg Snyders, Dennis DiDonna, Nils de Witte, Vincent Krouwenhoven and Saskia Reus. Their help, enthusiasm and input has been invaluable and key to securing our progress for the coming year.
We are just scratching the surface of what is possible. With your continued support and active participation we can see hundreds if not thousands of startups defy the missing middle.
Fine holidays!
Ben & Team
ben@vc4africa.com
Not yet registered with the network? Connect on:
Community Platform: http://www.vc4africa.com
Matchmaking Platform: http://www.vc4a.com