Visa has selected 23 startups for its first Africa Fintech Accelerator programme, which aims to help enable African startups through expertise, connections, technology, and investment funding.
Disrupt Africa reported in July on the launch of Visa’s Africa Fintech Accelerator programme, which followed the firm’s pledge to invest US$1 billion in Africa’s digital transformation and its long-term commitment to advancing Africa’s economies and driving inclusive growth.
The accelerator will enable startups to grow through a three-month intensive learning programme focused on business growth and mentoring. Following the programme completion, Visa will provide further support via capital investment in selected startups, while accelerating their commercial launch through access to Visa technology and capabilities.
The cohort includes five from Nigeria, namely Anchor, which provides APIs, dashboards, and tools for developers to embed and build banking products; Dojah, which offers a comprehensive Know Your Customer (KYC) and digital onboarding solution; Moni, which provides low-interest loans to mobile money agent communities; Orda Africa, an African restaurant cloud operating system provider; and Traction, which builds the next generation of payment solutions and business tools
Another four are from Kenya – OkHi, which allows banks, fintechs, and businesses to collect and verify customers’ addresses; Duhqa, a B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods; Power, which allows workers to take control of their financial health; and Workpay, an HR payroll provider.
Ghana also has four representatives, in the form of OZÉ, which provides digital recordkeeping tools with embedded finance products to medium and small businesses; The Blu Penguin, which delivers an in-store Point of Sale (PoS) system; AgroCenta, which runs a mobile merchant platform for smallholder farmers; and Affinity Africa, which provides banking products to the underserved and unbanked.
Three of the selected companies are from Morocco, namely B2B e-commerce and retail startup Chari, back-office operations and payments risk control platform PayTic, and mobility platform Weego. South Africa also has three representatives – Floatpays, an on-demand wage access platform; Franc, which allows users to invest in leading cash and equity funds; and OnLife, an all-in-one money management wallet.
The cohort is completed by Sympl (Egypt), which enables customers to shop and pay later, with no interest; Eversend (Uganda), a payments platform offering cross-border payments, virtual cards, currency exchange, and crypto buying and selling; PremierCredit (Zambia), an online microlending and investment platform; and Konnect (Tunisia), which offers payment links by SMS, email, Messenger, or WhatsApp.
“Africa has one of the most exciting and admired fintech ecosystems in the world, bringing outstanding entrepreneurial talent to a young digital-first population that is growing fast,” said Alfred F. Kelly Jr., executive chairman of Visa. “Visa has been increasing our investments in Africa for decades and strengthening partnerships throughout the continent to support the next wave of innovation and growth. Our new Fintech Accelerator will bring expertise, connections, and investment to Africa’s best fintech start-ups so they can grow at scale.”
