SAVCA's annual Venture Capital in Southern Africa Industry Conference is a highlight on the industry calendar and a valuable learning and engagement opportunity by SAVCA to the venture capital ecosystem.

EBnet is the proud media sponsor of this prestigious event. Below you'll find interviews from our Podcast Studio at the conference with some of the speakers as well as various stakeholders and delegates for you to keep updated with this important conversation. You can also enjoy our highlights articles summarising each day's discussions and key points.

Venture Capital plays a distinctive role in a developing economy: it supplies risk capital to young, high-growth firms that banks rarely finance because they lack collateral, long track records, or predictable cash flow. In poorer markets that gap is especially large. World Bank research finds that venture capital accounted for about two-thirds of equity financing in the average low- and lower-middle-income country in 2021–2023, compared with well under 40% in high-income economies.

The capital is not just money. Active investors typically bring governance, accounting discipline, hiring practices, and access to customers and later-stage funders - capabilities that are scarce where capital markets and professional management are thin. The kind of innovation they fund also differs from Silicon Valley. In developing economies, venture money more often backs logistics, distribution, marketplaces, supply chains, and digital payments than frontier research and patents. Those businesses can widen market access and lower the cost of doing business across the rest of the economy, while creating much needed jobs.