Over the last five years, more than $150 million has been invested in Tunisia's ballooning tech sector.

This came up as the country hosted the two-day AfricArena Deep Tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit in Tunis, which organisers say helped the North African country position itself as 'Africa's top deep tech and AI hub.

The summit was supported by Caisse des Depots et Consignations( CDC), the World Bank, Smart Capital, Startups & PME Innovantes, GIZ SAIS, AWS Startups and Cloud Plexo .

In her sponsors' welcoming address to delegates, Nejia Gharbi, executive director of Tunisia's CDC said: “Tunisia has emerged as one of the top 10 ecosystems globally in terms of available funding for startups and innovative small medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and leads the Middle East North Africa region in talent accessibility.

“Through the Innovative Startups and SMEs Project, we are seizing the opportunity to further expand access to finance and fuel growth.

“Initiatives like the Anava Fund of Funds and InnovaTech are driving this transformation by offering crucial funding, while ecosystem-wide and firm-level support initiatives bolster entrepreneurship at every level.”

AfricArena founder and CEO Christophe Viarnaud commented, "The summit highlighted how Africa's deep tech and AI specialists are bringing innovative solutions to the table that have the capacity to solve challenging worldwide problems."

He also acknowledged the summit's partners, saying the event demonstrated how Africa's digital transformation is propelling the continent's development.

As the summit came to a close on Wednesday, four winners from over 20 pitching start-ups were named Africa's top deep tech and AI startups. The AfricArena Tunis Summit winners are as follows:

• Best AI Startup Award: ToumAI (Morocco)
• Best Deep Tech Startup Award: Pixii Motors (Tunisia)
• Best Health Tech Startup Award: Saydalid (Tunisia)
• Best Sector Agnostic Startup Award: Yello App (Senegal)
• Most Promising Entrepreneur Award: KidzRise (Tunisia)

The winners won $25,000 in AWS Activate credits and they will participate in the AfricArena Tour’s final round of pitches at the AfricArena Grand Summit in Cape Town this December.

Youcef Rahmani, co-founder and CEO of ToumAI, commented on being named the top AI start-up at the summit, saying: "This award fuels our mission to break linguistic and cultural barriers, ensuring every customer’s voice is heard in our increasingly diverse world.

"We're truly proud to be recognised among startups driving the next wave of innovation, empowering people across the continent and beyond."

Anis Fekih, co-founder and CEO of Pixii Motors, sees the award as an affirmation to the company's efforts to drive innovation and its commitment to redefining urban mobility through advanced technology.

Fekih continued: "This recognition fuels our determination to keep pushing boundaries and delivering cutting-edge, sustainable mobility solutions that will positively transform urban communities across Africa and beyond."