Investigation. The thirteenth edition of AFSIC – Investing in Africa takes place on 13 and 14 October 2026 at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London. Billed as the largest annual African investment gathering held outside the continent, the conference is targeting 1,500 delegates, 350 investors and 350 profiled projects seeking more than US$10 billion. Behind the shop window, what is the ticket actually worth to a Cameroonian, Gabonese or Congolese company? A costed, unsentimental assessment.
Disclosure. cemac-eco.finance is one of AFSIC 2026’s media partners, alongside Semafor, IFC Review, Africa Global Funds and Capital Markets in Africa. The partnership is non-financial and carried no right of review over this article. The criticisms below are the newsroom’s alone.
1. What AFSIC is — and what it is not
AFSIC was launched in 2013. The event is owned by Africa Events Limited, registered in Jersey, and sits alongside African Investments Limited, also Jersey-registered. Both entities have a single owner and are run by Rupert McCammon. The group describes four pillars: the AFSIC conference, the African Investments Dashboard (an investor-to-project matching platform), the Africa Business Opportunities Dashboard (a free B2B platform), and a fee-based capital-raising advisory business.
This structural point is rarely made in coverage of the event: AFSIC is not a development institution, a public forum or an investment promotion agency. It is a private business with three revenue lines — delegate fees, sponsorships, and capital-raising services sold to the project sponsors themselves. None of that invalidates anything. It does mean the promotional numbers deserve the same scepticism you would apply to any vendor.
The format has been stable: two days (three in 2024) built around sector streams, country investment summits, “Meet the Investors” sessions, 60-second quickfire pitches, a Deal Room for bilateral meetings, and an opening-night networking event — the Meet African Dealmakers — sponsored by British International Investment and Proparco.
2. Five years of numbers: growth on paper, a plateau in practice
Here is the publicly available data for the last five editions. All of it comes from the organiser and none of it is independently certified.
| Edition | Dates | Attendance | Speakers | Deals profiled on site | Other indicators |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 (9th) | 10–11 Oct, London | n/a | 200+ announced | n/a | DFI backing: BII, FMO, DEG, BIO, Proparco |
| 2023 (10th) | 9–10 Oct, London | 1,318 (1,207 in person + 111 digital) | 350+ | 140 deals / US$6.2bn | 3,500+ meetings, 45 sponsors, 177 attendees seeking funding, 49% African |
| 2024 (11th) | 7–9 Oct, London | 1,347 (1,219 + 128 digital) | 380+ | 350 deals / >US$10bn | 4,300+ scheduled meetings, 163 government and trade promotion bodies, 55% Africa / 36% Europe |
| 2025 (12th) | 14–15 Oct, London | 1,300+ | 380+ | Deal Book: 300+ projects, ~US$10bn | Institutional investors with more than US$1trn in assets under management |
| 2026 (13th) | 13–14 Oct, London | 1,500+ targeted | 350+ targeted | 350+ targeted / >US$10bn targeted | 200+ investors already confirmed as speakers (April 2026) |
What these figures honestly show. Attendance has been flat at 1,300–1,350 for three consecutive editions, not growing. The “1,500+” figure has appeared in AFSIC’s communications since at least 2024 without showing up in any published headcount. The event has also shortened, from three days in 2024 to two in 2025 and 2026.
Three numbers to handle carefully:
- “Over US$10 billion in deals” does not mean US$10 billion raised. It is the sum of the amounts sought by listed projects. AFSIC publishes no conversion rate and no post-event figure for capital actually closed.
- “US$1 trillion in assets under management” aggregates the global books of the institutions in the room. Nothing indicates what share is allocated to Africa, still less to Central Africa.
- The 2023→2024 jump in profiled deals (140 to 350) largely reflects a change of scope: the Deal Book launched in 2023, then expanded into sector and country editions. It is not a 2.5x increase in underlying activity.
On the platform side, the group claims a network of more than 200,000 contacts, including 33,000 investors, 32,000 African corporate executives, 8,000 lawyers and 2,000 promotion agencies and chambers of commerce; more than 20,000 B2B introductions and over US$50 billion of live opportunities listed. Since 2023, more than 1,000 opportunities have been profiled in the Deal Books.
3. Who pays and who speaks: mapping the partners
Development finance institutions
The core is European and Anglo-Saxon. British International Investment (BII) is the long-standing sponsor of the Meet African Dealmakers evening, alongside Proparco (AFD group). Also present, currently or recently: FMO (Netherlands), DEG (Germany), BIO (Belgium), Swedfund, Finnfund, Norfund, the EBRD, the US DFC, the IFC, the African Development Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, PIDG, Africa Finance Corporation and TDB Group.
2026 sponsors
Financial centres and public agencies: Casablanca Finance City, Kigali International Financial Centre, BVI Finance, Brand South Africa, Growth Gateway (UK government), UNDP Rome Centre, the UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce, the Horticultural Development Council and Zimbabwe’s Zida.
Private and financial players: Heirs Holdings and UBA (Nigeria), RMB (South Africa), Kuramo Capital, Verdant Capital, Aqua-Spark, Africa Eats, CareEdge Ratings Africa, Niofar Capital (Senegal), Cascador, First Mutual (Zimbabwe), Tola Mobile, Icecap, DTOS, Strafin, Numeral, Meritas, Africa Legal Risk, Pro-Serve, Aabey House, ARIA, SAIL Investments, Manufacturing Africa (a UK programme) and Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Network partners — and one signal for CEMAC
Alongside AVCA (the pan-African private capital association), EAVCA (East Africa), AMIC (Morocco), COMESA and the African Diaspora Network sits CAMPEA — the Central Africa Markets Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, London-based and chaired by Tania Eyanga. It is, to date, the only explicitly Central African institutional bridgehead in the AFSIC ecosystem. African Investments’ wider partner network also includes a handful of firms from the sub-region: ETAH-NAN & CO, Akoa Mballa & Co and Ashunchong and Partners in Cameroon, the American Chamber of Commerce in Cameroon, and Yav & Associates in the DRC.
Francophone investors worth targeting
For a CEMAC sponsor, the investor list recorded at the 2025 edition contains a directly actionable francophone subset: Proparco, Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), Amethis, AfricInvest, Mediterrania Capital, Sahel Capital, Brightmore Capital, WIC Capital, Cauris Finance, Niofar Capital, ASKYA Investment Partners, plus impact-mandated funds including AECF, Goodwell, Incofin, Symbiotics, responsAbility, Lendable, Mirova SunFunder, Persistent Energy Capital, KawiSafi and Acre Impact Capital.
4. Becoming a speaker: the cheapest way in
This is probably the most underused part of the whole set-up. Speaker applications are open, free and submitted online through the Speaker Submission form on the AFSIC site. The organisers take a range of formats: solo presentations, sector panels, country sessions, and above all quickfire pitches — Quickfire Funds for fund managers, Quickfire 60-Second Snapshots for individual projects.
Two practical points:
- African Investments’ own commercial documentation states that a Quickfire slot is generally granted if the submission is made by June. For the 2027 edition, that means having the file ready in the first quarter.
- A pitch slot does not waive the delegate fee, unless it comes bundled inside a paid package.
The 2026 themes show what kind of subject lands: who will control Africa’s payment rails and whether fintech can deliver durable profit; whether agriculture can be made bankable and on what risk-mitigation terms; whether African banks are built for the next shock, and the real drivers of bank valuations; trade corridors, data centres and industrial scale; who will finance and own the energy transition; critical minerals and resource sovereignty; private debt and yield in underserved markets; microfinance as empowerment tool or debt trap; and why US institutional capital is reassessing Africa now.
5. The real opportunity: the full cost, in CFA francs
Here is what a CEMAC project sponsor should actually budget for the 2026 edition. Official rates, excluding 20% UK VAT.
2026 delegate fees
- Final Call: £1,475 (until 30 September 2026)
- Last Minute: £1,595 (until 10 October)
- On site: £2,350
- Student rate: £495 · Registered charity rate: £795
- 25% discount for three or more delegates — the single strongest argument for travelling as a delegation
- Dedicated Deal Room table: £795 · Meet African Dealmakers evening: £170
Capital-raising services (optional)
- Listing on the African Investments Dashboard: free
- Paid packages advertised between £1,450 and £4,950 (Deal Book placement, targeted mailings to matched investors, meeting solicitation six weeks before the event), including one option at £2,450 plus a success fee
- Capital Connect for portfolios of more than 15 transactions: £14,950
- Sponsorship: from £5,950 in 2026 (the 2024 grid ran from £8,950 to £28,950 depending on tier; a country investment summit was listed there at £10,950)
Realistic all-in cost for a delegate travelling from Douala or Libreville
| Line item | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Registration £1,475 + VAT | ~£1,770 |
| MAD evening £170 + VAT | ~£204 |
| UK standard visitor visa | £135 (rate in force since 8 April 2026) |
| Return flight | £900–1,400 |
| London hotel, 3 nights | £500–900 |
| Transfers, meals, contingency | £200–300 |
| Total | ≈ £3,700 – £4,700 |
At an indicative rate of £1 ≈ 760 CFA francs (verify at the time of payment), that is between 2.8 and 3.6 million FCFA per person. Add a £1,450 Deal Book package and you clear 4 million.
The question that matters: is it worth it?
The honest answer is that it depends entirely on how prepared the file is, and not at all on the quality of the event. AFSIC sells access, not capital. A promoter who turns up with an idea, a ten-page business plan and no audited accounts will spend 3 million FCFA on polite conversations. A promoter who turns up with three certified financial years, a working data room, a quantified need, an identified instrument and a documented FX strategy can compress six months of prospecting into two days.
The success stories AFSIC itself documents point the same way: every one of them is a company that was already structured and already raising. Husk Power (rural mini-grids in West Africa, US$100m in debt and equity), BURN Manufacturing (clean cooking in Kenya, US$10m equity), Falcon Aero (Nigerian business aviation, a US$10m facility from TLG Capital in October 2025), Africa Eats (agri-SME holding raising US$25m).
The most relevant case for CEMAC is Gozem. The francophone super-app — ride-hailing, marketplace, vehicle financing and digital banking — operates in Togo, Benin, Gabon and Cameroon, with Congo-Brazzaville as its fifth market. It closed a US$30 million Series B, half equity and half debt, with the MSC Group and Al Mada Ventures. Its executives explicitly credit AFSIC 2024 with the value of putting a face to names they had only ever met on video calls, and cite the IFC among the partners engaged on site. That is the model to replicate: a CFA-zone company with real revenue, using the event to accelerate a process already under way — not to start one.
6. What kinds of project actually get funded
Cross-reference what AFSIC promotes against what the market has actually financed.
What the market did in 2025
- AVCA: US$5.1bn invested across 530 transactions (+8% by volume, −5% by value). Private debt volume jumped 57%, a record. 81 exits (+27%). Fundraising fell to US$2.7bn across 16 vehicles (−34%), with DFIs providing 64% and African investors 21%.
- Venture capital (AVCA): 506 deals worth US$3.9bn; venture debt surged (+91% by value, to US$1.8bn); climate-related ventures captured 40% of deal value, up from 24% a year earlier.
- Partech: US$4.1bn raised, of which US$1.6bn in debt (+63%). Debt now accounts for 41% of capital deployed, against 31% in 2024 and 17% in 2019.
- Briter Bridges: solar was the single most funded category; fintech remained first by deal count; climate companies more than tripled their totals.
- UNCTAD: US$70bn of FDI into Africa in 2025, down from an exceptional 2024 but around one third above the long-run average. Greenfield project values fell while project numbers rose — a shift towards smaller, more numerous tickets.
- Ticket sizes: already in 2024, deals below US$50m represented more than half of total value for the first time in a decade, with an average ticket of US$15.2m.
Operational translation: the six families that get financed
- Distributed energy and solar — mini-grids, commercial and industrial solar, clean cooking, pay-as-you-go. The continent’s most funded category, and the one where recurring cash flows attract debt.
- Payments infrastructure and embedded finance — rails, interoperability, credit built on real usage. Pure-play fintech without proof of profitability now gets a cold reception: the 2026 stream is titled, bluntly, “from growth story to earnings engine”.
- Agri-industry and export value chains — processing, aggregation, logistics, terminals. The 2026 panel poses the question head-on: can agriculture be made bankable, and under what risk-mitigation conditions?
- Microfinance, private credit and SME finance — debt vehicles, factoring, trade finance. The fastest-growing segment, and the one where US$1–10m tickets find takers.
- Health and education — infrastructure and networks with contracted revenues, of clear interest to impact funds and foundations.
- Critical minerals, infrastructure and logistics corridors — highly visible in 2026 with a new mining stream, but realistically limited to sponsors able to absorb long development cycles.
Three implications for a CEMAC file
- Debt before equity. If your project has predictable revenue, structure a debt or quasi-equity request: that is where liquidity sits in 2026. Arriving with an equity ask on a stable cash-flow asset is a positioning error.
- Target the right ticket band. Below US$2m: I&P, WIC Capital, Brightmore, Cauris, Sahel Capital, AECF, Launch Africa, LoftyInc. US$5–50m: Proparco, BII, FMO, DFC, Amethis, AfricInvest, Verdant Capital, TDB, AFC. Walking into the wrong room costs you two days.
- Climate is a deal accelerator, not a wrapper. Four dollars in ten of African venture capital went to climate-linked ventures in 2025. A measurable component — not a line in the pitch deck — changes the response rate.
7. The blind spot: Central Africa is still outside the door
This is the most uncomfortable finding of this investigation, and it needs stating plainly.
The market data. According to Africa: The Big Deal, Central Africa captured 0.1% of the continent’s startup funding in 2025, across roughly 2% of deals above US$100,000. The region accounted for 2% of value in 2023 (US$68m), then collapsed to about US$5m in 2024. The contrast is brutal: East Africa 34%, West Africa 24%, North Africa 23%, Southern Africa 19%. Kenya alone raised close to a billion dollars in 2025, nearly a third of the continental total.
How that shows up in the AFSIC programme. The 2025 country summits covered Uganda, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Rwanda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Egypt. Not one CEMAC country. The published 2026 agenda organises country summits into four blocks: East, West, Southern and North Africa. Central Africa does not appear as a regional block.
Why this matters — and why it is reversible. AFSIC country summits are not allocated on geographic criteria. They are sponsored. The 2024 published grid listed a country investment summit at £10,950; 2026 sponsorship packages start at £5,950. In other words, CEMAC’s absence from London is not the market’s verdict on the sub-region: it is the result of a decision no public or banking actor in the zone has taken. An investment promotion agency, a regional bank, a sovereign fund or a private consortium could buy that visibility for the equivalent of 5 to 9 million FCFA — less than a three-day ministerial mission.
For comparison: Rwanda funds its presence through the Kigali International Financial Centre, Morocco through Casablanca Finance City, South Africa through Brand South Africa, Zimbabwe through Zida. None of those countries is better resourced than Cameroon or Gabon. They simply decided to occupy the ground.
8. A practical roadmap for CEMAC sponsors
T−9 months. List the project free of charge on africaninvestments.ai. Three free video tutorials — registration, uploading an opportunity, building the Deal Book one-pager — are available from the “Apply for Funding” page on the AFSIC site.
T−7 months. Submit a speaker or Quickfire application. Free. The documentation indicates that submissions made before June are generally approved.
T−6 months. Lock down the file: three certified financial years, a working data room, a one-page note in English, a five-page teaser, the amount sought, the instrument, use of proceeds, a repayment schedule or exit scenario, and — non-negotiable in the franc zone — an explicit FX strategy. The CFA franc’s euro peg is an argument to make, not a detail to bury.
T−4 months. Decide the level of commitment. Registration alone if you already know who you want to see. A Deal Book package if you need the network to work the room ahead of you. A Deal Room table (£795) only if you already have eight confirmed meetings — otherwise it is dead money.
T−3 months. Start the visitor visa application (£135, three to six weeks’ processing, a non-trivial refusal rate). Assemble a delegation of at least three to trigger the 25% discount.
T−6 weeks. The event app opens: this is the decisive moment. Diaries fill before the doors open. Target the “Meet the Investors” sessions matching your instrument — Meet the Debt Investors, Meet the DFIs, Meet the Energy Investors, Meet the Impact Investors, Meet the Green Finance Investors.
T+10 days. Follow up. This is where most of the value created on site is lost.
9. The verdict
AFSIC is a good tool, badly used by Central Africa.
It is neither a capital dispenser nor a racket: it is a private marketplace, decently stocked with serious counterparties — BII, Proparco, FMO, IFC, DFC, AfricInvest, Amethis, I&P, TDB, AFC — where access costs between 2.8 and 4 million FCFA a head. Attendance is flat, the headline “deals profiled” figures are amounts sought rather than raised, and no conversion rate is published. Those caveats stand.
But the entry cost is still lower than a prospecting tour across three continents, and the Gozem case — an operator in Gabon, Cameroon and soon Congo, US$30 million raised — shows the franc zone is not structurally excluded.
The real problem is not London. It is that nobody in CEMAC has yet bought the seat that would let the sub-region show up as a destination rather than an exception.
Practical information
- AFSIC 2026 — 13 and 14 October 2026, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, 200 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7UT
- Doors: Tuesday 13 October, 9:00am · Close: Wednesday 14 October, 5:00pm
- Registration: afsic.net/delegate-registration · Speaker applications: afsic.net/speaker-submissions
- Contacts: registrations@afsic.net (registration) · sponsors@afsic.net (sponsorship) · investments@africaninvestments.co (capital raising)
