Africa Tech Summit: A launching pad for startups with potential

The company secured a significant investment during the conference, vindicating Gonahasa’s conviction of the importance of attending the summit to empower local African businesses like his in the competitive tourist industry.

‘Tourism is a $4-billion market in Uganda, mostly controlled by large companies. But for tourism to be sustainable and really catalyze the local economy, it needs to reach the small local providers, whether that means cars or food, or places to stay,’ he said.

Tripesa is a Ugandan startup that provides a tourism and travel platform as a service for small enterprises in Uganda and Kenya, enabling them to build full e-commerce websites.

‘Technology has empowered a whole youth generation across the continent to build businesses and has democratized a whole range of sectors,’ agreed Africa Tech Summit CEO Andrew Fassnidge. ‘These are entrepreneurs solving real problems, they have experienced the pain points and they are providing solutions.’

Gonahasa described how small companies making just $200 a month offering tours had jumped to making more than $5,000 a month by having a website that works and where people could book directly, offer referrals and accept bookings and payments.

‘Tripesa enables these small local businesses to access the technology they need to attract customers, access payments, and grow. It allows for the democratization of technology in the tourism industry in Africa,’ Gonahasa said. ‘They started making more money purely because of access to technology.’

This year’s Africa Tech Summit Nairobi held in Kenya in February, brought together 1,700 leaders in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship from 64 countries around the world.

The summit attracted more than 800 companies and encouraged attendees to engage in discussions, share ideas, and learn about the latest trends and developments in the tech industry in Africa.

“There are mind-blowing things happening in education, climate, food security, cross border payments transfers, tourism, financing, logistics, EVs – all of this technology is having a huge impact on lives across the African continent,” Fassnidge said. “On the whole we have a continent that is a lot more empowered.”

As the African tech market matures, companies competing in the same corner of the market are also joining forces across borders. “We are seeing more B2B mergers and acquisitions in digital commerce and other sectors,” Fassnidge noted.

‘We are driving investment and connecting ventures with the right partners across the continent, which is critical, and we are moving from ventures just raising money to the sustainability of companies and technology transfers,’ he added.

The summit has also become a critical space for policy makers and others in the tech landscape to keep up with changes and innovations through networking and master classes offering deep dives into certain sectors.

Next year, event organizers plan additional master classes, more smaller sessions, and even outdoor group activities. Fassnidge said the Summit was also focusing more on female participation and ensuring gender and ethnicity parity.

Agencies like the International Trade Centre with its NTF V FastTrackTech project, which support the growth and attendance of entrepreneurs at events like the Africa Tech Summit, are critical, agreed both Fassnidge and Gonahasa.

ITC, which had provided Tripesa with Software as a Service (SaaS) business training, invited the company to attend the tech summit.

‘We engaged with a wide scope of investors, mostly based in Nairobi and South Africa, and the deal we closed has led to more business growth. We would not have had this access in Uganda,’ Gonahasa said.

‘The impact of this support is immeasurable,’ Fassnidge agreed. ‘For one, ITC offers consistent support over time, unlike some programmes that have a short horizon or have ceased when the market needs them the most in a downturn. They also plug entrepreneurs straight into the ecosystem, giving them a level of exposure they would rarely reach on their own.’

Gonahasa wants to start scaling Tripesa’s success to more countries and begin working with governments on how to develop tourism, develop capacity, and how to use technology to build quality tourism products and service.

‘The beauty of the success of these entrepreneurs, is how some of them go on to invest in the next wave of business founders,’ Fassnidge remarked.

About the project

The Netherlands Trust Fund V (NTF) (July 2021 – June 2025) is based on a partnership between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands and the International Trade Centre. The programme supports MSMEs in the digital technologies and agribusiness sectors. Its ambition is two-fold: to contribute to an inclusive and sustainable transformation of food systems, partially through digital solutions, and drive the internationalization of tech start-ups and export of IT&BPO companies in selected Sub-Saharan African countries.