As part of its efforts to accelerate the growth of 10 000 African startups and fast-trackinvestment in the continent’s startup ecosystem over the next five years, Microsoft, through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO), hosted its latest meetup for startup founders and entrepreneurs in Cape Town on December 1.

The Cape Town Microsoft for Startups Meet-up, the company’s largest gathering for founders, created to inspire and educate entrepreneurs, focused on the essential role of the founder, unlocking networking opportunities and accelerating startup innovation and growth whether they are a first-time founder, serial entrepreneur or a technical founder.

The free two-day event also examined the critical role that corporate organisations, venture capital investors, technology accelerators and incubators can play in accelerating startup innovation and growth across the continent.

Microsoft, which focuses on the essential role of the founder within the startup ecosystem, has created partnerships with accelerators and incubators across Africa, including Grindstone, Greenhouse, FlapMax and Seedstars, to provide industry-based startups with access to markets, technical skills and funding opportunities.

The ATO has also designed and sponsored business and technical acceleration programmes for startups in partnership with three accelerators in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

“South Africa is well established as one of the top four startup ecosystems on the continent and is leading the way for successful exits with more than one-third of the acquisitions across the African technology space since 2015.

“Microsoft is committed to nurturing and supporting our proudly South African startups through engagements such as this meetup,” says Microsoft South Africa commercial partner director Lionel Moyal.

Microsoft ATO MD Kunle Awosika adds that there is significant potential for Africa to become a “thriving hub of digital innovation” within the global startup landscape.

“Our ambition is to see an explosion of local invention and innovation that will contribute positively, not just to Africa’s digital economy, but to global society,” he says.

The ATO has engaged with more than 1 500 African startups through a series of online and physical engagements and hosted 10 startups at GITEX in Dubai recently.

South African startups Q-Hop and BancX also shared their success stories at the Cape Town meetup.

Q-Hop offers a contactless, cashless checkout solution to retailers, using a mobile application, providing customers with hyper-personalised promotional offers and retailers with real-time unique data insights.

Microsoft worked with the team to provide technical support, including a review of their solution architecture and the development of ground-breaking artificial intelligence algorithms.

Financial technology platform BancX helps companies and banks on the embedded finance and banking-as-a-service journey, redefining digital banking and financial services and enabling customers to win in the digital-first economy.

Azure is a key component in BancX’s vision to change the financial services landscape in Africa and beyond.

During the event, they had meetings with potential investors and customers, as well as engagements with the Microsoft leadership team to develop their joint customer pipeline.

Technical sessions included workshops on accelerating product innovation at scale, fund-raising during times of global financial crisis, how and why to consider geoexpansion – where we can scale up by selling in new countries or regions – and how to benefit from GitHub sponsors.

Microsoft also highlighted its Founders Hub, which was launched in Africa in 2021 under the ATO as a self-service hub to provide access to a wide range of resources, such as tools like Microsoft Azure, GitHub and Microsoft 365, as well as go-to-market and business support, including opportunities for startups to sell to Microsoft’s corporate and enterprise customers.

“The Founders Hub allows Microsoft to engage with accelerators, incubators and technology hubs across the continent. Our partnerships with key African accelerators provide crucial support to accelerate our South African growth-stage startups with their business development and market expansion plans,” says Moyal.

Currently, Microsoft’s Founder Hub supports more than 1 000 African startups, including nearly 150 South African startups, through Azure credit, Dev tools, access to mentors and technical support.

“Our goal is to enable startups to rapidly scale using investment funding, and by providing access to skilling programmes, access to markets and access to technology, with support from our engineering and product teams for co-innovation opportunities.

“We believe that startups can contribute significantly to developing Africa’s digital economy and contribute to the wider economic growth of Africa,” says Awosika.

To enable African startups to rapidly scale using investment funding, Microsoft established industry alliances and partnerships with venture capital investors that facilitate access to $500-million in potential funding.

“Microsoft has already established partnerships with several key venture capital investors, including Banque Misr, Global Venture Capital and Get Funded Africa, and the intention is to grow this network in the next five years to increase funding and enable them to scale up and drive economic growth,” the company highlights.

Microsoft has also supported a growth partnership with South African partner Technvst to provide 30 African startups with access to customers and market expansion opportunities.

Other South Africa-based startups, including Finclusion, The Awareness Company, Anisoptera, Omnisient and WalletDoc, have engaged with Microsoft on additional growth and market opportunities.