US-based accelerator 500 Startups is organising a Geek on a Plane tour to four African cities next year as it looks to connect investors with innovative African startups.<\/b><\/p>\n

A global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by Dave McClure and based in Silicon Valley, <\/span>500 Startups<\/span><\/a> has around US$200 million in assets under management.<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Geeks on a Plane<\/span><\/a> tour is for startups, investors and executives to learn about high-growth technology markets worldwide. It has already run a number of trips elsewhere in the world, but next year\u2019s Africa visit will be the first to the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trip, between March 20 and April 1, 2017, will take in Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg and Cape Town, with those interested in participating able to apply <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

500 Startups, like a <\/span>number of other global accelerators<\/span><\/a>, has become increasingly active when it comes to African startups. <\/span>South Africa\u2019s SweepSouth and Ghana\u2019s Kudobuzz<\/span><\/a> took part in its programme last year, and <\/span>startups from Kenya and Egypt the year before<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nigerian startups Podozi<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Aella Credit and Talentbase<\/span><\/a> have all been selected for programmes this year, while 500 Startups has also <\/span>launched 500 Falcons<\/span><\/a>, a US$30 million fund for investing in startups from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and partnered DraperDarkFlow to host the US$1 million <\/span>SpeedUPAfrica bootcamp in Ghana<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US-based accelerator 500 Startups is organising a Geek on a Plane tour to four African cities next year as it looks to connect investors with innovative African startups. A global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by Dave McClure and based in Silicon Valley, 500 Startups has around US$200 million in assets under<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,38,28,29],"tags":[219,17,8024],"class_list":{"0":"post-11031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-east-africa","8":"category-hubs","9":"category-southern-africa","10":"category-west-africa","11":"tag-500-startups","12":"tag-featured","13":"tag-geeks-on-a-plane"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.disruptafrica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}