Five startups have been selected from the African leg of the Innotribe Startup Challenge to compete at the global event in Singapore in October.
Disrupt Africa reported in March Innotribe has announced 14 African companies in the financial technology sector were among the 60 global semi-finalists for the event, with five picked to attend the final at a showcase held in Cape Town,
The selected startups are Intelworld, which delivers mobile apps on top of existing mobile wallets to help banks and merchants increase mobile e-commerce; Notify, which provides secure messaging infrastructure to help companies communicate with their customers via mobile instant messages; YueDiligence, which offers actionable, light-touch due diligence tool for entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers to assess deal readiness; 2Quins, an enterprise SaaS financial information tool; and ZAQ Finance, which provides debt reduction, savings, and low-cost credit products to low-income Africans.
“London, Singapore, and New York are part of the top ten cities in fintech for years now. We were delighted to bring the Innotribe Startup Challenge for the first time to Cape Town this year, drawing attention to the innovation happening on the ground in Africa. It was an exciting step, and we now wish the finalists the best of luck for the Finale at Sibos later this year,” said Fabian Vandenreydt, head of markets management, Innotribe and the SWIFT Institute at SWIFT.
Hugo Smit, head of Sub-Sahara Africa at SWIFT, said: “There is a genuine spirit of innovation in Africa and the semi-finalists who pitched in Cape Town really shows the appetite there is in this market for new business models and harnessing technology in new ways. I’m delighted that SWIFT and Innotribe are able to offer these young African companies this platform and wish them best of luck in Singapore at Sibos. We are already excited about the next African Showcase at ARC 2016.”
