As we kick off with our plans for 2022, we would like to first of all thank you for your support in 2021 and share our achievements with you.
Throughout 2021, the Secretariat was deeply involved with building the foundation for the successful launch of Catalytic Africa, deepening relationships with member networks, delivering on Africa Early Stage Investor Summit (#AESIS2021) and partnering with external firms to provide a supporting framework for our angel investor community.
Catalytic Africa, the African Startup Matching Fund solution, is a co-creation of ABAN and AfriLabs. Since its launch on 28th October 2021, we have recorded the registration of 471 stakeholders on the Catalytic Africa Platform, including angel networks, angel investors, innovation hubs and startups. The pilot for the Fund that we carried out in Nigeria and Cameroon allowed us to refine the process of uptake, and enable stakeholders joining the platform to have a meaningful experience without the usual tediousness that comes with raising capital.
Q1 of 2022 looks very exciting, as we expect to invest approximately $550,000 through the Catalytic Africa Fund as our matching portion with angel networks and angel investors towards innovative startups on the continent. We also intend to develop sector specific and gender-lens matching funds, fueled by Catalytic Africa.
During the year 2021, we welcomed 3 new members to our community of 56 member networks. For the first time, ABAN and Briter & Bridges partnered to conduct a survey and release a report on Africa’s Angel Investment Landscape. This inaugural report shows the evolving angel investment landscape on the continent driven by our networks community, which we are very proud of. Early stage consolidated investments recorded by our community was approximately $4million in 100+ with an average ticket size of $50,000, up from $15,000 3 years ago. In the context of trends in the early-stage investing space on the continent, this demonstrates significant growth in angel investing ticket sizes and reflects growing interest in early stage investing on the continent. We also noted that our angel networks executed deals with as few as 4 and as many as 75 angel investors involved, per deal. Our member networks now drive cross-border investments across the continent, for example, the Lagos Angel Network, Viktoria Angel Network and Rising Tide Africa co-invested in a Mauritius based startup.
Last year, the 8th edition of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit (#AESIS2021) took place online, complemented by in-person Investor Meetups hosted in 13 cities around the world. The event welcomed more than 2,000 delegates attending from 75 countries around the world, the largest gathering to date, with more than 600 early-stage Angel and VC investors connecting at the annual summit to take stock of the industry’s progress and to chart the way forward. Once again, the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit, a co-creation of ABAN and VC4A proved to be an effective platform, which unpacks investment opportunities, strengthens angel investors know-how and unlocks capital. We are considering repeating this hybrid approach with slight modifications for #AESIS2022.
In our effort to continue to equip our member networks with relevant investment toolkit artefacts, the ABAN Secretariat partnered with Epena Law Firm to create a suite of OHADA-Compliant documentation templates in French, aimed at supporting the investment and deal-making process for early-stage investors across 17 Francophone African countries — such as Cameroon, DR Congo and Senegal — to execute deals more easily by ensuring that all transactions are compliant with the prevailing OHADA laws. These set document templates are available on our website for free. In partnership with Clarence Abogados & Asociados, we intend to also develop and release investment templates in Spanish and Portuguese to support deal-making processes for our early-stage investors in Lusophone countries.
We understand the value Angel Investors bring to startups, society and the economy as a whole. That is why we are proud to lead, support and convene inspiring Angel Investing Networks around the world through collaboration. As we get into gear in 2022, our mission to equip angel investors with angel investing intelligence to increase investments made by angels across the continent will remain the core of what drives us. Our innovative approach to early stage investing will continue to drive us towards models that better support the African Startup Ecosystem.
We are proud to remain the leading Pan-African network for angel investors across the continent.
Fadilah Tchoumba
Secretary-General, ABAN
