Business
African Entrepreuners Going Online to Boost Business
When Chioma Achebe wanted to buy shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, she did not want to open an account with a local broker because the process could take days.
So she decided to create a website platform that would allow investors like herself to buy shares through their mobile phones and the Internet. She will officially launch the site, Afritrade, in July 2015.
“Retail brokers are more affordable but over-reliant on human intervention,” she says. “AfriTrade solves cost and time inefficiencies with a low-cost, high-quality mobile investing platform that clients can use to directly access the market.”
Her story is similar to those of many entrepreneurs who have used the power of the Internet to make cumbersome tasks simpler. But she is also part of a generation of western entrepreneurs who are attracted to the unique opportunities in Africa.
High levels of consumer spending, low inflation, and a rapidly growing middle class have made the African continent more desirable than it has ever been. McKinsey, the management consultancy firm, estimates that consumer spending in Africa could grow to US$1.4 trillion by 2020, up from US$860 billion in 2008.
Earlier this month, 200 people braved freezing temperatures on a cold Saturday morning to hear entrepreneurs from the African diaspora pitch their startups at an event at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.
The Diaspora Demo Day saw several early-stage companies seeking funding for their African-based businesses. The entrepreneurs presented proposals for sectors which varied from agriculture and financial services to transportation.
Consider Nour Drissi, who runs Loue I Voiture an online platform that allows tourists in Morocco to book rental cars at affordable prices.
Drissi, who already runs the car rental platform Book1car.com, launched the Marrakech-based company after noticing that she was getting a lot of interest from customers and car rental companies in Morocco.
