Manufacturing Africa, the UK’s flagship economic development programme for Africa, is set to host a Deals Pitch Room at AFSIC – Investing in Africa 2025, which will be held in London on 14-15 October 2025.
The 90-minute Manufacturing Deals Pitch Room will be an exciting session where investment-ready African manufacturing businesses will present their businesses directly to AFSIC’s investor base. The curated platform will connect companies seeking investment to viable investors. The event will showcase high-potential deals, foster networking, and accelerate investment decisions. All the pitching companies have been selected based on their high potential for deal closure, having received comprehensive investment readiness support from Manufacturing Africa.
Manufacturing Africa is at the forefront of delivering the UK government’s new Approach to Africa, which aims to increase awareness of UK programmes and showcase the UK’s offer through trade visits, business summits, and highlight the UK’s strong people-to-people links, including the African diaspora, to increase mutually beneficial growth opportunities.
AFSIC, as the leading Africa investment conference, is delighted to be partnered with many of the UK government initiatives that are involved in driving investment into Africa. British International Investment, the UKs development finance institution, is our networking event sponsor.
We spoke to Thomas Pascoe, Team Leader at Manufacturing Africa, about what AFSIC attendees can expect from Manufacturing Africa’s Deals Pitch Room.
What key challenges does Manufacturing Africa address and what is your mission?
Our mission is to catalyze economic transformation by enabling African manufacturing companies to attract the foreign direct investment (FDI) they need to scale, create jobs, and boost local production capacity. We see this as a huge driver of poverty alleviation. Creating manufacturing jobs means taking people out of the informal sector and into roles with regular incomes, regulated conditions, and structured career paths. The impact at a household level can then be transformational, giving families the opportunity to educate their children and afford healthcare.
What is Manufacturing Africa doing to help facilitate investor readiness for African companies?
The programme provides transaction facilitation support to African companies. This is responsive at the point of need: it can be anything from a whole business strategy, market assessment, and planning to more technical corporate finance work to unlock investment. We work on addressing the bottleneck to capital coming in. We also offer market studies and development impact assessments to strengthen companies’ appeal to investors.
What role do research and transformational studies have in informing your strategies to assist manufacturing companies in Africa?
Manufacturing Africa conducts sector-wide strategic transformation studies to identify high-impact opportunities and inform policy development. These studies help shape targeted interventions and guide both public and private sector efforts to grow key manufacturing sectors. We share copies of all this market transformation work on our website – manufacturingafrica.org – covering the gamut of topics from alternative proteins to critical minerals, as a public knowledge good.
Manufacturing Africa is set to host 90-minute pitching session entitled, Manufacturing Deals Pitch Room brought by Manufacturing Africa – what can delegates attending expect from the sessions?
Delegates attending the 90-minute Manufacturing Deals Pitch Room can expect a dynamic session where investment ready African manufacturing businesses pitch directly to AFSIC’s investor base. It’s a curated platform to showcase high-potential deals, foster networking, and accelerate investment decisions. We have worked intensively with the pitching companies to support their fundraising ambitions and have selected only the highest potential deals.
AFSIC supports UK initiatives like Manufacturing Africa by profiling investor-ready projects, hosting pitching sessions, and facilitating networking between African businesses and global investors. It also leverages platforms like the AFSIC Deal Book and African Investments Dashboard to increase visibility and coordination of UK-backed opportunities. All this is done across FCDO programmes, UK investors, and UK companies and advisors in the ecosystem.