Founders, mentors and investors gathered at EbonyLife Place in Lagos as the Deal Room enters its fifth year
Entertainment Week Africa (EWA), an initiative of Livespot, hosted the first EWA Deal Room alumni meetup on Wednesday, October 7, at EbonyLife Place in Lagos, and used the evening to announce the first EWA Deal Room grant pool for 2026.
Now in its fifth edition, EWA brings creators, founders, investors, policymakers and cultural leaders to Lagos across seven tracks. This year’s edition runs from November 17 to 22, 2026, under the theme Closing The Gap.
The EWA Deal Room sits as the investment backbone of EWA. Founders apply, are paired with experienced mentors who sharpen their business and their pitch, and then present to investors during the week. Since its foundational cohort in 2022, the programme has welcomed founders working in creator tools, music, art, sport, health, hiring and entertainment.
Speaking on the new grant pool, Group CEO of 360Co and Founder of Entertainment Week Africa, Deola Art Alade, said: “As we’ve been building the Deal Room for 2026, one question we’ve kept coming back to is: after the conversations, what next? Advice is useful. Mentorship is useful. Introductions are useful. And sometimes what a business needs is capital to make the next thing happen.”
The grant pool exists to give promising businesses a real boost at the point where support can help them reach their next stage of growth.
Throughout the Deal Room process, businesses work with mentors, and a jury that includes each business’s lead mentor will assess them against a clear set of criteria. The pool will be awarded at EWA in November to standout businesses from this year’s Deal Room and from its alumni, and will keep backing standout businesses moving forward.
“You know what the Deal Room is. You know the calibre of founder who can get real value from it,” Art Alade said. “So if you know someone building a strong creative business who should be in that room this year, send them our way. We want to help good businesses move forward.”
A Growing Track Record of Alumni Impact
The Deal Room welcomed its foundational cohort in 2022. Since then, the ecosystem has consistently tracked the growth, traction, and commercial breakthroughs of its founders across multiple cycles.
Recent milestones reflect this deep continental progress. Aktivate, a standout from last year’s cohort, recently secured a strategic corporate partnership with Access Bank. Concurrently, Atsur, which verifies and tracks the ownership history of fine art, placed among the top five winners at the NBA Africa Triple Double Accelerator in Rwanda following its Deal Room pitch. In the logistics and services sectors, prop rental platform Prop’ly supported over 450 productions in 2024, while mental health platform FriendnPal scaled its infrastructure to deliver over 10,000 therapy sessions.
Last year’s specific four-day programme ran from November 19 to 22, where eight finalists completed the full curriculum and pitched directly to investment funds including Future Africa, Askya Investment Partners, Catalyst Fund, and Consonance Invest, alongside active angel networks.
Five Years of Mentoring
Kemdi Ebi, Co-Founder and CEO of EnterFive, creators of Versus Africa, goes into his fifth year as Lead Mentor of the EWA Deal Room. He has spent that time working with companies across several sectors, helping founders build, in his words, “businesses that actually create value for investors, as well as customers.”
“It was just great to be in the community of founders, investors, partners and like-minds all the same,” Ebi said of the evening. “It was also really good to see the companies.”
He noted the many economic pressures that businesses across the continent are working through, and the founders in the room who are still gaining users, customers and revenue, some of them raising capital to keep growing. One of the first companies brought into the foundational cohort in 2022 was among them. “I think it is a testament to the great work the EWA team has put together,” he said.
Kemi Owo, CEO and founder of Thallos, a geospatial environmental intelligence infrastructure company, spoke of the value of strong African representation in this space, alongside access to venture capital, mentorship and leadership from industry titans. “It has been incredible to be around so many wonderful founders in the creative sector,” she said. “I am so grateful and thankful that I was able to be part of this event.”
Where the Deal Room Goes Next
For 2026, the fifth year of EWA, the Deal Room will focus on mature companies, those that are self-managed and show substantial traction.
“Our goal is to focus on mature companies, companies that have shown they are self-managed and have substantial traction,” said Ebi. “Beyond the programme, we want to keep working with them and create a community of founders and businesses, with experts who help with their day-to-day operations so they can reach their goals.”
After the festival, the team plans to hold regular alumni meetups built around teaching and learning. It will also study how investors see returns, since returns are what keep capital moving into companies like these, and will work on additional ways for capital to reach businesses. Ebi described this as an important part of closing the gap, the theme of this year’s edition.
Founders and creators who would like to take part in this year’s Deal Room can apply at ewafrica.com/apply/?role=deal.
About Livespot
Livespot is a creative and culture company that builds content, live experiences, talent pathways, and creative spaces for Africa’s creative economy through five verticals: Studios, Scenic, Spaces, Experiences, and Icons. It produces Entertainment Week Africa and Detty December Fest. Livespot is part of 360Co, the holding company that also includes Rent A Rig, DOT360, and Women Driving Culture. Learn more at livespot360.com.
About Entertainment Week Africa
Entertainment Week Africa (EWA) is a pan-African gathering of creators, founders, investors, policymakers, and cultural leaders in Lagos, organised across seven tracks: Music, Film & TV, Fashion & Beauty, AI & Tech, Art & Animation, Live Events & Production, and Creative Enterprise. The fifth edition takes place from November 17 to 22, 2026, under the theme Closing The Gap.