Fourteen startups have been shortlisted for the Thomson Reuters Africa Startups Challenge, with one of the finalists to win US$10,000 prize money.
Disrupt Africa reported in May on the launch of the Africa Startups Challenge, which aims to identify the startups with the potential to leverage new technology and business models to leapfrog current or traditional solutions.
The programme will see the hosts, Thomson Reuters and VC4A, partner with selected companies to scale their businesses rapidly.
The hosts said Thomson Reuters selected the shortlist of finalists from startups listed on the VC4A portal.
The shortlisted startups are set to attend the Thomson Reuters Africa Summit to be held in Cape Town in October, where one startup will be named winner of the Africa Startups Challenge, taking home the US$10,000 cash prize.
The 14 shortlisted startups include Abacus – which provides real-time data on the Nairobi Securities Exchange; Nigerian research e-library Academix; Nigerian agritech firm AgroData; Kenya’s African Markets – a platform dedicated to African stocks; blockchain secured land information database from Ghana BenBen; Ugandan mobile fintech startup Ensibuuko; and Kenya’s FarmDrive, which facilitates loans for smallholder farmers.
Also making the shortlist are Kenyan FX payments platform Kwanji; Markit Opportunity – which connects smallholder farmers in Kenya with market traders; Kenyan visualisation platform RippleNami; Nigerian record keeping solution for MSMEs SmartFinance; digital commodities exchange from Uganda tech4farmers; investor communications platform The Vault; and Nigerian IoT startup for farmers Zenvus.
