By Ifeoma Asika
Following the successful pilot of its digital DealRoom with the UK government’s Department for International Trade (DIT) Africa, Asoko Insight has announced that the deal origination platform will continue to match UK investors and businesses to fund-seeking African corporates for a further six months.
The extension of the DealRoom underscores its initial success and the commitment of the UK government to continue to advance its objective of mobilising new and substantial investment on the continent.
Since its launch in January, the DealRoom has published over 40 opportunities from high-growth African firms and facilitated 34 matches with UK-based investors for further discussion. Asoko’s rigorous qualification process enables investors to skip the initial and often time-consuming pre-screening stages of deal making, moving more swiftly to inking deals that support their bottom lines and bring much needed capital to high-potential companies.
With COVID-19 disrupting business as usual, the DealRoom’s digital approach to deal facilitation has become a crucial innovation, enabling connections in a self-isolating world and adding speed to deal origination when we have no time to lose. As we take the platform forward, critical sectors like healthcare, agriculture and logistics will be prioritised, helping investors to locate opportunities and ensuring that Africa’s private sector can effectively support the economic response to the pandemic.
Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa at the DIT, Emma Wade-Smith OBE, said: “The volume of interest and qualified deals which have materialised over the past three months is a testament to the utility of the platform in connecting investment demand and supply at distance. With enormous challenges ahead for our economies, it is more important than ever that we can enable and support these online business connections, to ensure that UK investors can continue to support business growth in Africa. It makes good business sense to extend the availability of the DealRoom platform by an additional six months to maximise the opportunities to link bankable projects in Africa to the UK investment sector which would not otherwise have the opportunity to connect with each other.”
Co-founder and CEO of Asoko Insight, Rob Withagen said “In these challenging times, we’re proud to facilitate easier connections between fundseekers and investors. We’re confident that the savings generated by centralising outreach and due diligence in initial deal origination stages will help get capital to where it is needed and maintain the UK’s ambition to be a strong and supportive partner to Africa.”
The DIT DealRoom is open to investors with a UK presence or UK-based financial backers. Asoko’s digital concierge service will be presenting a range of opportunities over the coming months to connect worldwide investors, corporates and governments with Africa’s private sector.
