Africa Investment Forum Closes With 29.5bn Of Investor Interest

This years Africa Investment Forum AIF, held in Rabat, Morocco from 4th to 6th December, generated 29.5bn in new investor commitments for projects on the continent.

The commitments were made after a total of 40.9bn of deals were presented to investors in the 41 boardrooms that were set up during the forum. Among the showcased deals, 34 were investment-ready, while 7 remained in the early-stage phase.

The forum attracted the widest participation ever since its launch in 2018. A total of 1,707 investors from 200 institutions across 83 countries attended the event.

A number of significant agreements were reached during the AIF. Seedstars Africa Ventures I, a venture capital fund targeting early-stage investments in scalable African start-ups, announced a first close of 42m, with support from the African Development Bank, EIB Global under the EUs ACP Trust Fund and Boost Africa initiative, and other global investors. The African Development Bank and Bank of Africa SA also signed a 50m risk-sharing agreement to boost private-sector financing and African trade, aiming to generate 200m in additional trade and support SMEs across over 20 African countries.

Another agreement was inked between the African Development Bank Group, in partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa DBSA and institutional investors, to explore a multi-originator synthetic securitisation transaction aimed at mobilising private capital and de-risking African development finance institutions. The initiative builds on the success of the Banks 1bn Room to Run Programme and will create a platform to unlock lending capacity for high-impact projects across climate finance, infrastructure, and financial intermediation.