Persistent hosted its first Climate Venture Builder Conference, in Nairobi on October 26th. The gathering involved over 130 participants from a wide range of organizations active in the climate early-stage company sectors in Africa. Entrepreneurs, investors and development finance institutions, consultants and experts from various climate fields across the continent attended the full day of discussions and shared insights about building early stage businesses in the diverse ecosystem of African climate startups.
According to the June 2022 Climate Policy Initiative- FSD Africa report on the state of climate finance in Africa, by 2030 $2.8 trillion are needed to address climate change on the continent. Out of this, $2.5 trillion shall come from international public sources and the domestic and international private sectors. These needs represent 10% of Africa’s total annual GDP.
At the same time, not enough companies addressing climate change are getting started in Africa to meet the clean energy (7) and climate action (13) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) articulated by the UN and ascribed to all African member countries. Those startups created rarely survive beyond the second or third round of equity funding. Persistent’s venture building model helps startups meet this challenge, by not only providing early-stage financial capital, but also filling the gaps and complementing the entrepreneur’s strengths with skilled human capital.
From consumer behavior and affordability of energy access, to new way of electric transportation for more sustainable cities or energy efficiency solutions for utility companies, some of the insights shared reflected the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and their views of the respective markets, representing the wide variety of business models, the opportunity and the diversity of solutions proposed to drive social impact and address climate change across the African continent.
Persistent’s Climate Venture Builder Conference is part of its commitment to a collaborative approach to accelerate the development of the climate positive sectors, contributing to strengthen the venture ecosystem with knowledge sharing, webinars and publications. The conference included a full day of panel discussions and presentations made by industry experts and the leaders of some of its largest partner companies in areas of electric vehicle mobility, off-grid solar for consumers and businesses, energy efficiency, carbon credit monetization and venture building techniques. Keynote address was provided by Evans Osano, Director of Capital Markets, Financial Sector Deepening Africa.