Four months after its launch, Accelerate Africa, an emerging accelerator program aiming to replicate the success of ‘Y Combinator’ in Africa, has unveiled its first cohort of 10 promising African startups.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS | Early Stage African Startup Founders Invited to Apply to 8-Week Accelerate Africa Program
Accelerate Africa will be looking for founders with lived experience, solving the kinds of problems that can become global businesses.https://t.co/yfckcQI283… pic.twitter.com/4W9cvz43dw
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) February 8, 2024
Organized in collaboration with Future Africa and Prosper Africa, Accelerate Africa is spearheaded by operator VCs Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Mia von Koschitzky-Kimani. Both have extensive experience in building, funding, and advising numerous African founding teams such as:
- Andela
- Flutterwave
- Moove, and
- Daystar Power
Below is a list of the startups selected for the program’s inaugural cohort:
1.) Afriskaut (Nigeria): Founded by Nnamdi Emefo, Buggu Ussa, Joshua Osazuwa, Ogunkola Obafemi, and Eby Emenike, Afriskaut is a Nigerian AI and data startup that enables the discovery of Africa’s top sports talent using proprietary data and AI.
2.) Agrails (Kenya): Agrails is a Kenyan cleantech startup that collects, organizes, and builds AI-powered data systems that enable organizations to respond to and price Africa’s climate risk and opportunities in real time. The startup was founded by Mwenda Mugendi.
3.) Campus HQ (Nigeria): Founded by Remi Dada, Campus HQ is a Nigerian proptech startup that is building the AirBnB for workspaces, simplifying the discovery, setup, and management of offices for mid to large teams in Africa.
4.) CDIAL (Nigeria): CDIAL is a Nigerian AI startup building a conversational AI that speaks and understands African languages, led by the team of Yinka Iyinolakan, Shona Olalere, and Soji Akinlabi.
5.) Checkups (Kenya): Checkups provide affordable and accessible healthcare to the uninsured and underserved via micropayments from earnings, bank deposits, or mobile money. The Kenyan healthtech startup was founded by Moka Lantum and Renee Ngamau.
6.) FlickWheel (Nigeria): Henry Okafor and Paul Edwards are the masterminds behind Flickwheel, a Nigerian autotech startup that helps vehicle owners efficiently care for and maintain their vehicles through on-demand auto repair credits, vetted auto technicians, and automated vehicle repair tracking.
7.) Juiceme (Eswatini): Sandile Diamini is the founder of Juiceme. The HRTech startup collaborates with organizations employing blue-collar workers, enabling them to access their wages via WhatsApp without waiting for payday, particularly for emergency expenses.
8.) Messenger (Nigeria): Amanda Etuk and Essien Etuk drive Messenger, a logistics startup that empowers delivery drivers to become logistics entrepreneurs by providing not just income but ownership opportunities. Additionally, through its vehicle financing service, drivers can acquire their delivery vehicles, creating a stake in the value chain.
9.) PipeOps (Nigeria): Founded by Samuel Ogbonyomi, Alex Idowu, and Taye Odunfa, PipeOps is a DevOps provider that allows companies without cloud expertise to automatically set up, deploy, and manage their apps on the cloud. They achieve this through a suite of traditional DevOps tools, managed services, and no-code tools.
10.) Settle (Egypt): Settle is a fintech startup that automates the process of B2B payments, enabling clients to pay all their suppliers in a few clicks. They are addressing the market gap of manual workload in payments that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems do not currently cover. It was founded by Kamil Sayour.
After the recent demo day at the Marriott Hotel in Lagos, critical decisions about pre-seed or seed funding are pending for some of the selected startups.
Angel investors and venture capitalists will be investing between $250,000 and $500,000 in the most compelling startups. Unlike Y Combinator, participation in the accelerator program does not guarantee direct funding from Accelerate Africa.
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