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AFRICA • INVESTMENT & ECOSYSTEM ENABLER
Nadia Mykhalevych
DEC. 15, 2019
During Seedstars Summit Africa 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Seedstars selected 10 the most promising startups from the continent that proved their ideas to be innovative and scalable. The teams will represent Africa at the global Seedstars Summit 2020 in Lausanne, Switzerland and compete for the title of the Seedstars Global Winner, and up to USD 500,000 in equity investment.
Roque Online, Angola, a technology platform that provides e-commerce services with a business suit.
Crop2Cash, Nigeria, provides farmers with mobile money solutions and connects farmers to input service providers and off-takers.
Exuus, Rwanda, a limited liability tech company that provides Saving Groups with a decentralized collective ledger.
Pezesha, Kenya, a financial marketplace facilitating credit scoring and affordable credit for the unbanked by connecting them with lenders.
OKO Finance, Mali, offers mobile-based index insurance products to small farmers and facilitates access to affordable loans, weather alerts and tips.
Nadji.bi Gambia, The Gambia, is a solar solutions manufacturer specialized in research, development and industrial manufacturing of solar solutions in rural and urban areas.
Nvoicia, Ghana, assists small businesses with unpaid invoices and helps them gain access to working capital loans.
Vectra, South Africa, provides a single integrated device that combines point-of-sale (POS) software as well as a speed point for card payments.
Afrikamart, Senegal, is a FoodTech startup that aims at becoming the largest fresh food supplier in Africa without owning any farm.
Teheca, Uganda, a mobile app to connect young mothers and pregnant women to nurses.
In addition, a wildcard was given to Txapita, Africa's largest urban mobility app (Mozambique), to participate in the global summit as well.
Additional prizes were awarded to Zafree Papers, from Ethiopia, who won the Land Restoration Prize and a10,000 USD grant powered by DOEN and Seedstars. Meanwhile, OKO finance from Mali will receive 3-month access to the Investment Readiness Program as the winner of the Job Creation Prize created in partnership with the African Development Bank.
As the Seedstars Summit Africa set the goal to achieve better gender equality and highlight the impact that women are having in the region, together with with the German Corporation and GIZ, Seedstars invited an all-women jury panel including Lyndsey Vandament (Investment Director at Social Venture Fund Global Partnerships), Amanda Cotterman (Partner at Equalife Capital), Anne-Marie Chidzero (CIO at FSD Africa), Rapelang Rabana (Founder and Chair at Rekindle Learning), Absa Gningue (Innovation Officer at the African Development Bank), Vivan Nwakah (Founder at Medsaf), and Anicha Abdul (Managing Director of EP Management and Consultancy Services).
The Summit Day also hosted a series of keynote speeches by Rapelang Rabana, Kathomi Njeru (Executive Director at Green Pot Enterprises Ltd.), Jason Eisen (Founder & CEO at UTU), Chris Lwanga, (Senior Director Software Partnerships at Microsoft) and Vivian Nwakah (Founder at Medsaf).
Prior to the main day, an intensive growth Bootcamp taught the 45+ participating startups on how to scale up their businesses. It was followed up by the Investor Forum where the startups had over 180+ one-to-one meetings with top local and international mentors and investors.
“It was very impressive to see all those entrepreneurs from 25+ countries coming together, learning from each other and getting constant support and feedback from mentors, investors, and other industry experts. On top of the content and the networking opportunities they are provided with, their energy is the cherry on the cake.”
The Summit was organized in partnership with Microsoft4Startups, the Embassy of Switzerland in South Africa, DOEN, African Development Bank Group, Tshimologong, the German Society for International Cooperation - GIZ, France24, Venture Burn, Tech Cabal, HYBR, THUD, Workshop 17, AlphaCode and others.
