{{Young techies hunched over laptops in small offices across Africa want to create their own versions of California’s Silicon Valley and some are beginning to attract investors prepared to take a risk in the hope of high returns.}}<\/p>\n
One such start-up, a South African social photography app called Over, last month beat 19 others from around the world to win funding from U-start, an advisor that matches mainly European investors with fledging businesses.<\/p>\n
Italy-based U-start has 3.8 billion euros ($5.2 billion) under management and aims to allocate as much as 15 percent of that to technology firms in Africa over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n
“We are convinced that there are great business ideas that have the chance to become global players, not just local ones,” said U-start Chief Executive Stefano Guidotti.<\/p>\n
Still in their infancy, Africa’s technology start-ups matter for the continent because they have the potential to help solve problems in basic services such as education and health.<\/p>\n
In Ghana, for example, a mobile app by social enterprise m-Pedigree verifies whether medicines are genuine. Fake medicine is a scourge in Africa and people often have no way of telling whether they are buying the real thing or not.<\/p>\n
Africa has nearly 90 technology hubs, research bases often funded by international firms such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, to incubate early-stage firms in cities such as Abidjan, Accra and Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n
But while developers have plenty of ideas, many lack the technical or business skills needed to make money from them.<\/p>\n
readon http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/investingNews\/idAFKBN0ER1HK20140616<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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