11 startups have been selected to Pitch Live at Africa Startup Summit next month in Kigali, Rwanda and 5 of them are from Nigeria. They are OkwuEco, HouseAfrica, Limestart, ThankUCash and Riby.
The second edition of the Africa Startup Summit, powered by Disrupt Africa, will take place at Africa Tech Summit Kigali on February 5-6, bringing together more than 600 stakeholders in the tech startup space across the continent to explore the opportunities and challenges within the ecosystem, while showcasing Africa’s abundant entrepreneurial talent.
The focus will be on encouraging collaboration, and creating connections between investors, corporates, stakeholders and startups. As part of this mission, applications were opened late last year to Pitch Live at the Africa Startup Summit, with chosen startups earning the chance to pitch before an audience of over 600 investors, corporate partners, accelerators and media.
More than 100 applications were received from startups across the continent for the opportunity to take part. These have now been narrowed down to the chosen 11, hailing from six African countries and active in sectors such as ed-tech, fintech, prop-tech, agri-tech, recruitment and waste management.
Here is the full list of companies selected to Pitch Live at Africa Startup Summit:
- BAG Innovation (Rwanda): a digital platform that combines AI and gamification to simulate virtual internships and bridge the gap between the Academic and Business sectors;
- OkwuEco (Nigeria): a marketplace that helps users to buy, sell, trade or recycle their solid waste from anywhere, without payment, language or location barriers;
- M-Lugha App (Kenya): translates the Kenyan school syllabus into indigenous languages for rural, nomadic and pastoral communities, improving quality of education;
- HouseAfrica (Nigeria): uses blockchain technology to digitise land ownership verification for banks and mortgage companies, increasing access to loans for home buyers;
- MarketForce (Kenya): connects Africa’s informal retail shops directly to suppliers of consumer goods and financial services;
- The Awareness Company (South Africa): uses data-driven storytelling to help organisations make sense of multiple sources of information from people, sensors and systems to get a clear picture and make quick and effective decisions;
- Limestart (Nigeria): boosts financial inclusion for unbanked small businesses in Africa’s informal sector by helping them digitise transaction records and collect flexible digital payments;
- M-omulimisa (Uganda): a virtual online consultation platform for smallholder farmers, also offering agro insurance services;
- Talents Arena (Egypt): an online recruitment platform that helps growing companies find the ideal tech talent matching their needs;
- ThankUCash (Nigeria): provides infrastructure for rewards and loyalty for banks and businesses across Africa;
- Riby (Nigeria): helps communities, cooperatives and trade groups digitise their operations and get access to financial services through its digital platforms and offline channels.
“While we expected a good number of quality applications, we were blown away by the array of exciting and impactful startups competing to come to Africa Startup Summit this year. Thank you to all applicants for taking the time to reach out. We feel we have selected some of Africa’s very finest to present on stage in Kigali, and we look forward to their pitches,” said Gabriella Mulligan, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.
“The 11 startups chosen to take part in this year’s Pitch Live have been offered one very simple opportunity – to get up on stage in front of an expert jury panel and hundreds of potential investors, corporate partners, and customers. We are confident there will be deals to be done for them in Kigali,” said Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.
The selected startups will also have the opportunity to attend the rest of the event, which features two other summits, and take part in the wide variety of workshops, discussions and networking sessions taking place over the three days.
Tickets to attend Africa Startup Summit are currently on sale here.