Africa’s top tech startups

DISRUPTING THE CONTINENT AND WRITING THE FUTURE

After 13 weeks of intensive coaching and hard work, the top ten startups in the 2019 Startupbootcamp (SBC) AfriTech cohort were finally ready to show off their ventures to the world at a Demo Day last Thursday.

“By the end of the century, one third of all people on the planet will be African,” SBC AfriTech programme director Nsovo Nkatingi said opening the event.

“Within the next 80 years, the population of Africa is projected to increase to a staggering

4.5 billion people and all of that growth will happen in urban areas.

“African cities are growing at a rate that is unprecedented in human history and this tectonic shift will profoundly impact every aspect of our lives – food, commerce, transportation, housing, financial services and communication,” Nkatingi said.

“Everything will be fundamentally disrupted by this. New and unique challenges cannot be addressed by trying to cut and paste solutions from other markets. They require a deep understanding of the local context and cultural nuances. African challenges are best solved by African innovators and corporate startup collaboration is critical for success.

“In the midst of the most dramatic transformation in human history all across the continent, the future is being written by disruptive African startups collaborating with innovative corporates and leading investors who are scaling African solutions to African challenges.” In addition to shining a spotlight on cutting-edge technologies from across the continent, the event served as an opportunity for each startup to reflect on how the past three months had impacted their businesses.

Tekwane Mwendwa, co-founder and CEO of Kenyan company Asilimia, said one of the biggest highlights had been winning the Africa Cup at the SA Innovation Summit, which saw him walking away with a R5-million investment offer from the Unicorn Group and three weeks of acceleration. This will help the startup make mobile money cheaper and easier for informal traders to use, while enabling them to rechannel the transaction fees saved into critical services and products they couldn’t previously afford.

Cinnamon Clubs CEO and founder Dickson Mushabe said that during the course of the SBC Afritech programme, he acquired many skills that have benefited his company, which in turn will help the treasurers of savings and investment clubs to automate the club’s bookkeeping.

As a result, Cinnamon Clubs has made history by becoming the first company to offer insurance on loans to informal savings and investment clubs in Uganda.

Henry Ifeanyi Mascot, CEO of Curacel Systems, said prior to joining the programme, his team had only dreamed about scaling the business across Africa. Now, it is becoming a reality, thanks to their proof of concept with Old Mutual which will see their AI fraud detection and health claims solution being implemented in Uganda and four other east African countries where UAP Old Mutual offers health insurance coverage.

For Databotics director Paulo Scholle, the programme has enabled his team to build a scalable, repetitive business model as opposed to the consulting model they were using initially. By offering their robotic automation solution to small and medium-sized enterprises, the startup now generates annuity income. They enable companies to liberate employees from routine, repetitive tasks so they can focus on more strategic, value-adding roles.

One of the biggest achievements for HouseAfrica was powering Nigeria’s very first blockchainbased real estate transactions. COO Ndifreke Udo and CEO Uba Nnamdi Chukwuebuka said this was an offshoot of their collaboration with the Nigerian Mortgage Refinancing Company, which will give the blockchain-based land registry the opportunity to exclusively service 100 000 land titles across six states.

Over the past three months, Africa’s first on-demand rental platform, Rentoza, has grown substantially. The company’s CEO, Chris Govender, said to date, there have been over 2 000 users on the platform, a 250% increase in traffic to the site and 167 transactions.

Scaling African solutions to African challenges