- The Visa Fintech Accelerator program provides startups in Africa with valuable 1:1 mentorship, personalized training, and networking opportunities.
- The fintech companies have been selected from 28 African countries – of these, 65% are female-led.
- Start-ups will participate in a 12-week program designed to uplift innovation across Africa.
Visa, a world leader in digital payments, has announced the startups shortlisted from across Africa to participate in the second cohort of its Africa Fintech Accelerator program.
As part of Visa’s work to unlock financial innovation across
the continent, the biannual program offers 12 weeks of 1:1 mentorship and
personalized training, providing seed to series A startups with exclusive
opportunities to access funding, development, and resources.
Cohort 2 startups operate across 28 African countries, a 55%
increase from Cohort 1 where the representatives operated across 18 countries.
65% of them feature female leadership, rising from 43% in the inaugural
edition.
The selected startups offer a range of solutions, such as
neo-banking, merchant payments, credit scoring, risk and identity management,
embedded finance, social commerce, escrow services, and more. They aim to
address the challenges and opportunities in the African fintech landscape, such
as financial inclusion, access to credit, cross-border payments, and digital
transformation.
Aida Diarra, Vice President, and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at
Visa remarked: “At Visa, we believe in uplifting innovation while driving
access and inclusion across the financial ecosystem. Today, we are proud to say
that our second cohort of Accelerator participants represents more than 50% of
countries across Africa, up from a third during our first cohort. Not only
that–but women are in leadership roles across the majority of these
cutting-edge startups. We have a robust, diverse selection of innovators seeking
to shape the future of commerce and finance – and Visa is happy to help them
take the next step to where they need to be.”
The Accelerator program, launched in June 2023, is reflective
of Visa’s ongoing efforts to help uplift the digital economy in Africa,
including a pledge to invest $1 billion in the continent by 2027 to help
revolutionize the payments ecosystem.
The 12-week virtual Accelerator program will conclude with an
in-person Demo Day, where startups will have the opportunity to pitch their
innovations to key ecosystem players, funding partners, angel investors, and
venture capitalists, enabling them to take small steps towards unlocking their
full potential.
The program builds on the success of the first cohort, who
graduated in February 2024 with an investor week in Nairobi that saw the
participation of more than 250 attendees including banking and fintech
partners, investors, and venture capital firms. The first cohort startups have
since reported positive outcomes from the program, such as increased user
growth, product enhancements, funding opportunities, and strategic partnerships
with Visa and other industry players.
Dolapo Adejuyigbe, Co-founder and Co-CEO of
Traction, a Nigerian startup, and developers of the Traction App, a one stop
platform for small businesses to accept payments, run their businesses and
access capital for growth, who participated in the first cohort, commented: “The
Visa Accelerator Program has been very engaging infused with practical
learnings across all parameters required to build and scale our business. We
have also been able to involve some of our team members in these programs,
which we believe will expedite our path to execution. Grateful to also be part
of a community of founders who are looking for similar outcomes for their
startups, acting as peer mentors through the process. Lastly, we are very
excited on the initiatives we are partnering with Visa on, some of which we
have started executing on even during the accelerator program.”
The Sub-Saharan Africa startups shortlisted for the second
cohort of the Visa Fintech Accelerator program for Africa are:
·
Chapa – Ethiopia
– Merchant Solutions
·
CheckUps
Medical Hub – Kenya – Embedded Finance (Health)
·
AzamPay –
Tanzania – B2B Marketplace
·
Beem –
Tanzania – Social Commerce
·
Bizao
– Ivory Coast – Merchant Payments Solution
·
Hub2 – Ivory
Coast – Enabler Infrastructure
·
Iwomi Technologies –
Cameroon – Money Movement
·
Proboutik –
Cameroon – Merchant Payments Solution
·
Vaultpay
– Democratic Republic of Congo – Merchant Payments Solution
·
Aku – Nigeria
– Neo-banking
·
Cleva –
Nigeria – Money Movement
·
Curacel –
Nigeria – Insurance Management
·
E-doc Online
– Nigeria – Open Banking
·
Raenest –
Nigeria – Money Movement
·
Bridgecard
– Nigeria – Enabler Infrastructure
·
Truzo – South
Africa – Escrow
Services