Ten startups have been announced as winners of the Seedstars Summit Africa 2019. Held in Johannesburg, South Africa, the summit is a competition for startups from different countries in Africa. First emerging through pitch contests and mentoring in over 20 African countries, the participating startups got their chance to pitch to an audience that included a number of Africa-focused investors.
This year, over 40 startups participated in the Seedstars Summit Africa. Over a four day period, the Summit helped startups to restructure their pitches, identify bullet points that would be interesting to investors and network to gain new connections across the continent.
Without further ado, here are the names of the 10 startups who emerged as winners:
Exuus (Rwanda): A piggybank startup that helps people to save and invest their money.
mVocia (Ghana): A lending platform that helps small and medium companies secure loans based on their invoice data.
Pezesha (Kenya): A secure Peer to Peer marketplace platform that allows Kenyans to loan to Kenyans securely via M-pesa.
Teheca (Uganda): A medical startup that connects new parents to nurses for in-home postnatal care services and support.
OKO Finance (Mali): provides smallholder farmers in emerging countries with index insurance and other farming-related services.
Afrikamart (Senegal): An agritech company that helps farmers address issues around market access, logistics and sustainable agricultural practices.
Nadji Bi (The Gambia): A clean energy solution that uses solar power to provide electricity to a potential 1 million customers.
Vectra (South Africa): A digital commerce company that builds retail solutions and e-commerce services for customers.
Roque Online (Angola): An e-commerce solution that helps merchants in the informal sector to get online, sell and deliver their products to customers.
Crop2Cash (Nigeria): A Nigerian startup that is building financial services for farmers and helping them send and receive money.
All ten startups will get the chance to pitch at the Seedstars World Summit in April 2020 in Switzerland to win the $500,000 prize money.
Two other startups won individual prizes for the potential impact of their solutions.
OKO Finance, the startup from Mali, won the Job Creation Track sponsored by the African Development Bank (AfDB). While Zafree, a startup that is manufacturing paper sustainably without cutting trees, won the DOEN Foundation Land Restoration Prize.
The DOEN Foundation Prize is a $10,000 prize that could help the Ethiopian Zafree scale its business and build out its manufacturing operations.
