AfricArena Tunis Deep Tech & AI Winners Help Cement Tunisia as Africa’s Leading Deep Tech & AI Hub

TUNIS, 17 October 2024 - In the last five years, over $150 million in investment has streamed into Tunisia’s fast-growing tech ecosystem. The two-day AfricArena Deep Tech & AI Summit which took place from 15 - 16 October at the City of Culture in Tunis, Tunisia earlier this week has helped Tunisia to position itself as Africa’s

leading deep tech and AI.

The summit supported by CDC, The World Bank, Smart Capital, Startups & PME Innovantes, GIZ SAIS, AWS

Startups and Cloud Plexo is a testament to the impact Tunisia’s innovation and tech ecosystem has on

Africa’s tech ecosystem.

In her sponsors welcome address to delegates attending the two-day AfricArena Deep Tech & AI Summit,

Nejia Gharbi, executive director at Tunisia’s Caisse des Dép?ts et Consignations said, “Tunisia has emerged as one of the top 10 ecosystems globally in terms of available funding for startups and innovative SMEs, and proudly leads the MENA region in talent accessibility. Through the Innovative Startups and SMEs Project, weare seizing the opportunity to further expand access to finance and fuel growth. Initiatives like the Anava Fund

of Funds and InnovaTech are driving this transformation by offering crucial funding, while ecosystem-wide and firm-level support initiatives bolster entrepreneurship at every level. Additionally, ecosystem support and capacity building efforts are strengthening the foundation for Youcef Rahmanisustained innovation and developed ecosystem.”

As the summit concluded on Wednesday, four winners out of over 20 pitching startups were crowned among

Africa’s best deep tech and AI startups. The AfricArena Tunisi Summit winners are as follows:

Best AI Startup Award: ToumAI (Representative: Youcef Rahmani, co-founder and COO; Morocco)

Best Deep Tech Startup Award: Pixii Motors (Representative: Anis Fekih, co-founder and CEO; Tunisia)

Best Health Tech Startup Award: Saydalid (Representative: Fares Messedi, founder; Tunisia)

Best Sector Agnostic Startup Award: Yello App (Representative: Stéphane Mancabo, founder & CEO Senegal)

Most Promising Entrepreneur Award: KidzRise (Representative: Wiem Ben Mahmoud, founder and CEO; Tunisia)

The winners won $25,000 in AWS Activate credits and they will participate in the AfricArena Tour’s final round of pitches at the AfricArena Grand Summit in Cape Town this December.

AfricArena founder and CEO Christophe Viarnaud said, “The AfricArena Tunis Deep Tech Summit has entrenched Tunisia as Africa’s forerunner in the deep tech and AI space and we are proud of what Tunisia has accomplished. The summit spotlighted how Africa’s deep tech and AI specialists are bringing innovative solutions to the table that have the capacity to solve challenging problems worldwide. Thanks to the support of our partners, the summit showcases how Africa’s digital transformation is driving the continent’s development forward.”

Thrilled about his win, Youcef Rahmani, co-founder and CEO at ToumAI said, & Winning the & Best AI Startup award at AfricArena 2024 is an incredible honour for ToumAI. We are grateful to AfricArena and their sponsors for their support. This award fuels our mission to break linguistic and cultural barriers, ensuring every customer’s voice is heard in our increasingly diverse world. We're truly proud to be recognized among startups driving the next wave of innovation, empowering people across the continent and beyond.

Anis Fekih, co-founder and CEO at Pixii Motors said, “We are incredibly honoured to be recognized as the Best Deep Tech Startup at AfricArena Tunis Summit. This award is a testament to our team’s hard work, innovation, and our commitment to redefining urban mobility through advanced technology. AfricArena has been an exceptional platform, bringing together visionary entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders from across the continent. The community here is truly inspiring, united by a shared drive to leverage innovation for solving Africa’s unique challenges. We are grateful to the AfricArena team for creating such a collaborative environment that offers startups like Pixii Motors the visibility and support needed to scale impactful solutions.

This recognition fuels our determination to keep pushing boundaries and delivering cutting-edge, sustainable mobility solutions that will positively transform urban communities across Africa and beyond.”

For more information, contact Jabulile Ngwenya at [email protected]

About AfricArena

AfricArena was launched as a platform in 2017 to support the creation of market access and investment opportunities for its ever-increasing community of founders, angel investors, corporates and VC investors.

Designed with a digital approach in mind, AfricArena consists of a series of investment deal flow events and interventions and an open-source platform for all stakeholders, all based on principles of open innovation and entrepreneurship. The AfricArena brand has rapidly gained enormous credibility in the tech startup ecosystem with alumni startups having raised over $500 million in the past seven years. The AfricArena Summit events are

broken into three segments as follows: Investor Unconference, Founder’s BootCamp, and the main Summit

Event. For more information about AfricArena, visit www.africarena.com