AfricArena

From an AfricArena award in Nairobi in 2023 to more than $1.7 million in disclosed funding and a new investment from Proparco, Kenya’s Farm to Feed is demonstrating what can happen when an ambitious African startup turns a major structural challenge into a scalable business. Food loss is one of Africa’s most persistent and underappreciated challenges. Across sub-Saharan Africa, a significant proportion of fruits and vegetables never make it to market. For smallholder farmers, that means...

The Western Cape's climate and green economy incubator closed its inaugural twelve-week programme with a Demo Day that drew investors, government and media into one room. Now it is turning to a second cohort. CAPE TOWN, 27 August 2026. For twelve weeks the founders had done the unglamorous work. On Thursday afternoon they finally got the stage. Inside a packed room in Cape Town, twenty climate and green economy startups walked up one after another, each with five minutes to make their case...

Six years after winning AfricArena’s Future of Work Challenge, South African HR technology company Jem has raised $8.4m in Series A funding, marking a remarkable evolution from earned wage access to a broader workforce platform for Africa’s frontline employees. There is something particularly rewarding about seeing an early-stage startup return to the headlines years after first appearing on an AfricArena stage. This time, the company is called Jem. Back in 2020, it was SmartWage. And it was...