Renaissance Capital to double down on the Africa tech and fintech space.

Renaissance Capital has disclosed that it will intensify its efforts to support the African tech ecosystem.

The 25-year old emerging and frontier market focused investment bank made the pledge on Thursday during its inaugural Nigeria tech and fintech virtual conference.

Speaking at the event, Adesoji Solanke, Director, Equity Research Analyst, Frontier / SSA Banks & Fintech at Renaissance Capital stated that the investment bank would support the ecosystem through advisory, research and venture investing.

Adesoji said, 'as we’ve always done in public markets, we will once again lead with knowledge and transparency to help reduce the friction with sourcing equity or debt capital for tech companies, driving exits, mergers and acquisitions, by connecting entrepreneurs with financiers and strategic investors around the world.  Some our research you may have come across already and there will be many more as we go on from here'

He expressed the readiness of the team at Renaissance stating that it team has been strengthened significantly over the past month to focus on these new initiatives.

According to Adesoji, Renaissance Capital will continue to invest in its Africa franchise with firm commitment to support investors and founders like it has been doing for well over a decade in Africa.

He further described 2021 as a breakout year for the Africa tech ecosystem.

'Since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen landmark fundraising transactions which have attracted heavyweight global venture investors such as SoftBank, Sequoia and Tiger Global, and new unicorns coming to life, with Flutterwave, OPay and Wave being some of the major ones which all happen to be in the fintech space.' he said.

Highlights of the conference was panel discussions on various topics including digital asset and wealth management with Odunayo Eweniyi – Co-founder and COO, PiggyVest,  Razaq Ahmed – Co-founder and CEO, CowryWise, Tosin Osibodu – CEO, Chaka, Eric Idiahi – Chairman, Tangerine Financial as panelists.