South African entrepreneurs Paul Cartmel and Nic Haralambous have launched AfricanUp.com, a website dedicated to connecting startups, accelerators, investors and technology hubs around Africa.
Users can post their own entrepreneurial stories on the website and recommend their peers, with the end goal being to allow users to grow their professional profiles and reputations.
“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when launching a platform like AfricanUp. Our goal isn’t to build a revolutionary technology business. Our goal is to connect startups, founders, investors and accelerators from around the world,” said Haralambous.
The concept for AfricanUp grew from the co-founders’ belief in the talent across Africa, and a mutual feeling the continent offers great investment opportunities.
“However, one of the major requests that I get from investors and accelerators around the world when discussing technology in Africa is for ‘the great startups’,” said Haralambous.
“This made me realise that there is a search problem in the technology startup space (ironically) and I wanted to create a platform to help startups and investors spend less time searching for each other, and more time building great things together.”
The website went live today, inviting the public to register under four categories – startups, accelerators, investors and tech hubs – to begin conversations.
“In a sense, this is a proudly African way of strengthening businesses – by strengthening the connections in the entire ecosystem,” the co-founders said.
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