KIC business, aiScarecrow Technologies wins a spot to pitch at AfricArena Grand Summit in South Africa
When aiScrarecrow Technologies Founder, Silas Boateng, took the first step to start and building his business with the training he received from KIC, he imagined that this would be a great resource to expanding his business and giving it the needed exposure and networking, but he was only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Now a few years down the line, aiScarecrow met with over sixty other start-ups pitching at the AfricArena Grand Summit held in Cape Town, South Africa, which took place from the 8th -10th November 2022, having won the West Africa preliminary selection pitch for the event.
The three-day conference featured pitches from startups operating on the African Continent, South Korea, and Europe as well as keynotes and panel discussions from the top minds in the investment, acceleration, tech, and startup space on the African continent and globally.
Meet aiScarecrow Technologies, an AgriTech crop protection start-up that leverages technology to control pests. The company uses eco-friendly technology to ward off pest birds from cereal farms using aural and visual aids, thereby helping to reduce productivity losses and contributing to viable agricultural value chains.
Gaining a spot in the FMO-sponsored pitch challenges was a great achievement for aiScarecrow Technologies as it granted the company the opportunity to travel to Cape Town and pitch its innovative solution to over 75 startups and 200 investors from across the globe. The summit was preceded by a two-day event, which is a founders’ boot camp and the VC Unconference weekend. The aim was to connect founders with investors and corporations, strengthen the international traction for innovative tech startups, and promote the African tech ecosystem, whiles providing a platform to harness opportunities and attract both entrepreneurs and investors to Africa. The FMO Pitch category had 7 startups from the AgriTech and agribusiness, energy, food, and water industries. In addition to aiScarecrow Technologies (Ghana), there were start-ups such as Digital mobile Africa (Tanzania), Greenal (Algeria), Rumo Energy (Tanzania), Agripoa (Tanzania), Smart Gasapp (Ghana), and Sand to Green (Morocco & France).
The FMO is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. As a leading impact investor, FMO supports sustainable private sector growth in developing countries and emerging markets by investing in viable projects and entrepreneurs. FMO believes that a strong private sector leads to economic and social development and has a close to 50-years proven track record of empowering people to employ their skills and improve their quality of life. FMO focuses on three sectors that have a high development impact: financial institutions, energy, and agribusiness, food & water. With a committed portfolio of Eur 9.3 billion spanning over 85 countries, FMO is one of the larger bilateral private sector development banks globally.
aiScarecrow is leveraging on the network received and shared to create a lasting relationship with investors spotted at the event, to be able to secure for the company some good investments, collaborations, and partnerships. KIC is glad to be a part of the success journey of our start-ups and incubated businesses. KIC remains committed to focusing on empowering young men and women to drive innovation in agriculture, the country’s largest employer, and training them to lead sustainable, successful businesses. Since its inception, KIC has trained more than 1300 young people with business skills and entrepreneurship through participation in workshops and has nurtured some of the most promising youth-driven, agri-tech startups in Ghana today.
