The Green Energy Africa Summit (GEAS) has recently announced the commencement of the 2023 Energy Investment Village (EIV), an exciting event that will enable African clean-tech startups and energy projects to pitch their ideas and secure potential investments. The EIV is currently open for entries from emerging African energy businesses and will be concluded with a lion’s den-style pitching event during the GEAS in Cape Town on 11 October 2023.
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The EIV is a joint partnership between Saldanha Bay Innovation Campus and the Research Institution for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), with the support of Anza Capital and Afida. This is the second year of the EIV, and last year’s event saw finalists representing local clean-tech projects pitch their ideas to energy leaders, holding potential investments worth over $100 billion.
The winner of last year’s event was Brayfoil Technologies, a South African wind-energy company that develops adaptive turbine designs, allowing for more efficient applications in the wind energy, aerospace, sailing, and automotive sectors. Following their win, the Brayfoil team hosted several meetings with potential investors on the sidelines of the GEAS.
GEAS Vice President for Energy, Paul Sinclair, expressed his pride in connecting Africa’s best emerging clean-tech firms with serious funders looking to invest in the sector. He stated his anticipation to amplify that commitment with this year’s event, which aims to develop black-owned businesses in the booming green-energy industry. Sinclair called upon all African clean-tech start-ups and energy projects to enter this year’s EIV. The initiative is open to start-ups in the early stages of rolling out clean-tech projects, as well as large-scale energy projects ranging from 20 to 100MW, requiring finance to get off the ground.
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The EIV is also calling for organisations looking to become strategic partners to support its commitment to giving Africa’s clean-tech start-ups and energy projects access to global investors. Freeport Saldanha CEO, Kaashifah Beukes, explains that the EIV’s conceptualisation was driven by the need to connect and capacitate clean-tech start-ups and energy projects. She further stated that investors who have an appetite for investing in these kinds of projects often do not have sight of them, and the EIV seeks to become a conduit between investment and solution.
The Energy Investment Village is a unique opportunity to accelerate innovation through the development and deepening of supportive ecosystems, says Davis Cook, CEO of advisory firm RIIS. “Long-term sustainability can only be achieved if we ensure a responsive and connected environment in which business and society can innovate,” says Cook. “The EIV is an excellent platform to strengthen the building blocks of collaboration that are critical for problem solving in a fast-changing world.”
The EIV has become an exciting innovation pipeline at a time of global energy crisis due to bottlenecks in international power supply, geopolitical uncertainty, and a rapidly evolving energy mix. As part of the GEAS, it supports stimulating deals and transactions across the African Energy Industry. The GEAS brings together governments, national regulators and utility companies, independent power players, investors, financial institutions and service providers to drive deals and investment into energy projects, provide energy access, and solutions for the future of Africa.
Apart from securing invaluable investor engagement, Brayfoil Technologies won a R20 000 cash prize from FNB, a year’s business membership with the Africa Scotland Business Network (ASBN), and an ASBN branding and marketing workshop at EIV 2022. During the EIV finals, judges adjudicate start-up pitches according to criteria such as innovativeness, sustainability, and business merit.
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To register your interest in the Energy Investment Village, please visit here (https://apo-opa.info/40Ur6LS)
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Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard