AFSIC – Investing in Africa is always a great opportunity for networking, putting a name to a face and getting in front of the right investors, say Raphael Dana and Maria Margarida Ferreira of Gozem, a super app dedicated to Africa.
“Last year my partner and I spent a lot of time speaking with many investors in conference calls but at the AFSIC event we saw the real value of meeting people, having a coffee for an hour, chatting and being able to put a face to a name,” says Dana, who is co-CEO and co-founder of Gozem with Gregory Costamagna. “The event offers an opportunity to get the attention of the right investors.”
Following their experience profiling their investment opportunity at AFSIC 2024, Gozem recently announced it had secured $30 million Series B debt and equity funding with the MSC Group, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, and Al Mada Ventures, the venture arm of Casablanca-headquartered Al Mada Group, owner of the Attijaraiwafa Bank and other financial institutions.
Gozem is a super app dedicated to Africa - one mobile application on your smartphone that allows you to do many different things - that currently includes ride-hailing, an e-commerce marketplace, vehicle financing, and digital banking.
Gozem began as a ride-hailing app that has been operating successfully for several years, and expanded into other areas to cater to needs. As it was complicated for their drivers, the champions of their ride-hailing platform, to get vehicle financing, Gozem worked with IFC, the World Bank and other local banks - some of whom they met at AFSIC 2024 - to provide their drivers with loans to finance their vehicles.
“Fintech in Africa today is a lot about embedded finance, where you have many operating players that weren’t originally financial institutions,” say Dana and Ferreira. “By their business, they’re potentially the biggest enabler of fintech services.”
AFSIC – Investing in Africa has become perhaps Africa’s most important annual investment event. AFSIC is wholly focused on accelerating Africa’s economic emergence by matching investment opportunities in Africa; transforming Africa’s business, trade and investment environment; sustainably growing Africa’s economy; and increasing African incomes in all business sectors at a continental scale.
“At AFSIC, I think what was really interesting was all the different types of investors we were able to meet,” say Dana and Ferreira. “Obviously, all the big DFIs are there. IFC is one of our big partners, but there are many others from many other countries represented, which offers a good opportunity to catch up with them all. In addition, all the big private equity funds of Africa are represented at AFSIC, and we were able to discuss the current round we've just closed, and the structure of future rounds.”
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