The Milken Institute and the Motsepe Foundation recently announced the 10 semi – finalist teams advancing to the Semi-finals Round of the Milken-Motsepe Prize in Fintech, with each team receiving $100,000 in funding.
According to a press release, the prize supports innovative solutions to expand access to tools necessary for financial inclusion across emerging and frontier markets.
The prize will eventually award $2 million in total prizes, including a $1 million Grand Prize including a Grand Prize to be awarded at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles, in May 2024.
“By supporting these pioneering teams, we aim to foster financial inclusion and empower entrepreneurs who drive economic growth and opportunities in their communities,” said Emily Musil, Senior Director, Milken Institute.
“Our prizes help identify, support, and celebrate talent to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit and empower visionaries to turn their ideas for a better future into reality.”
Below are the selected startups:
- AZA Finance (Formerly BitPesa), Kenya
Team lead: Elizabeth Rossiello
AZA Finance is a B2B fintech company offering businesses low-cost, efficient, and secure financial services, including payments, currency exchange, and treasury, across all major currencies.
[TECH] [PODCAST] We Use Digital Currencies for 7% of Transactions, Says CEO, AZA Finance, Formerly BitPesa: In this podcast, Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO, AZA Finance, formerly BitPesa, talks early beginnings in.. https://t.co/p2k3jmcNyx via @BitcoinKE
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- Chapa, Ethiopia
- Team lead: Nael Teklehaimanot
Chapa is an online payment gateway company with a developer-friendly API that simplifies integrating payment processing into websites and applications for Ethiopian businesses.
- Chumz, Kenya
Team lead: Sam Njuguna
Chumz is a gamified savings product that leverages behavioral psychology to help individuals save at low cost.
- FarmPawa, Uganda
Team lead: Moses Eteku
Farmpawa is a crowd farming platform that connects investors with real farming assets, empowering farmers and driving sustainable agricultural growth.
- Flow Global, United Kingdom
Team lead: Michael Rothe
Flow Global is a liquidity engine that helps retail merchants grow in the digital economy by addressing all of their working capital needs.
- PayCloud by Lipa Later, Kenya
Team lead: Eric Muli
Paycloud is a digital banking platform that addresses late payments in Africa by offering seamless payment processing, payment splitting, automated invoicing, and financial tools.
- Nyla Bank, Ghana
Team lead: Mubarak Sumaila
Nyla Bank is building Africa’s first digital Islamic bank with a goal of empowering 1 billion people with innovative, Shariah-compliant products and services that align with ethical principles.
- Oze, Ghana
Team lead: Meghan McCormick
Oze is a digital lending platform that bridges Africa’s credit gap by providing banks with a small and medium-sized enterprise- (SME) focused app that digitizes financial data, enabling risk assessment and lending to small businesses.
- Trade Lenda, Nigeria
Team lead: Adeshina Adewumi
Trade Lenda is a banking platform tailored to SMEs, where loans can be accessed within one to six hours, and micro-savings can be achieved for business goals.
- Verto, United Kingdom
Team lead: Ola Oyetayo
Verto is a business-to-business cross-border payments platform for businesses in emerging markets, powered by a unified network that eliminates intermediary fees, handles 49 currencies, and settles transactions faster.
Over the next four months, the semi-finalist teams will test and scale their solutions, which will be evaluated for impact, scalability, and sustainability.
They will participate in an Innovation Showcase at the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit on December 5-6, 2024, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. During this event, the 10 teams will pitch their innovations to a panel of expert judges and investors, and three teams will be selected to move on to the final round of the prize.
The judges will evaluate the pitches based on the teams’ ability to deliver solutions that improve financial inclusion for under-resourced groups in emerging and frontier markets.
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