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Cameroonian health-tech entrepreneur Melissa Bime has been crowned winner of the US$25,000 Anzisha Prize, for INFIUSS, her online blood bank and digital supply chain solution which ensures local hospitals have access to blood.

Hosted by the African Leadership Academy (ALA) in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the Anzisha Prize celebrates Africa’s most innovative social and business entrepreneurs under the age of 22.

Twenty-two (22) year old Bime was awarded the US$25,000 Grand Prize for her INFIUSS platform, which currently services 23 hospitals in Cameroon ensuring they have life-saving blood when and where they need it.

“Today, I stand here to represent every young girl out there that just has her dreams.  I stand here to represent this amazing group of entrepreneurs that I am a part of. With these people, the future of Africa is very bright. We are going to change this continent,” Bime said, accepting the prize at the Awards gala.

The first runner up – awarded US$15,000 – was 18 year old Sierra Leonean Alhaji Siraj Bah, whose company produces paper bags and cooking briquettes; while 21 year old Ugandan Joan Nalubega was named second runner up – receiving US$12,500 – for her mosquito repellent soap.

The winners were selected from a group of 20 finalists, who participated in a 10 day accelerator prior to pitching their businesses to the Anzisha panel of judges.  Each finalist received US$2,500.

“We are proud of all 20 finalists and are excited to see two young and dynamic women taking home top prizes.  Their contributions will continue to impact their countries and they are role models for other young women across the continent. They are demonstrating how to turn obstacles into opportunities that create value and jobs for others,” said Koffi Assouan, programme manager at the Mastercard Foundation.

Applications for the next cycle of the Anzisha Prize will open on February 15, 2019.

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GEN Africa, which operates pan-African projects as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), has announced Kigali will host its first GEC+Africa event on August 7-8 next year.

GEC+Africa, a new initiative of GEN Africa that was launched in 2017 at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) in Johannesburg, will gather investors, startups, accelerators and other entrepreneurial support organisations from across the continent.

The announcement followed a visit to Rwanda where a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between GEN Africa, led by Kizito Okechukwu, and the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rwandan Convention Bureau, Denise Omany.

“After meeting with ministers, CEOs and most importantly young students, I am even more confident that Rwanda is an ideal place to convene entrepreneurs and those backing them seeking to scale Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and performance,” said Okechukwu. “I have experienced both the warm hospitality and determination of Rwanda’s leaders in securing the rights to host this important event in Rwanda.”

GEC+Africa is aligned with the African Union Agenda 2063 “The Africa We Want,” which aims to create an Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth. This GEC+Africa will focus on six key sectors – agriculture, education, energy, e-commerce, finance, health, technology, and transportation.

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In a market already boasting the likes of WorldRemit and TransferWise, Somalia-based startup DagDag thinks it has what it takes to succeed in the remittances space.

Founded last year, DagDag aims to save customers time and money when making remittances by breaking down the barriers that exist in the money transfer industry. It does this by offering a simple place for users to compare providers, choose the best rates, and swiftly and safely send money home, all with a few clicks.

“If you’ve ever had to transfer money before, you’ll know exactly how hard it is to try and figure out which money transfer company will give you the best rate,” Shakur Shidane, co-founder of DagDag, told Disrupt Africa.

“DagDag makes it really simple and painless. With our easy three-step process, DagDag lets you register, find the best value provider, and send money to anyone, anywhere, at any time. It’s kind of like ComparetheMarket.com for the remittance industry.”

An interesting niche, and one DagDag has tested first and foremost in Somalia, where over 500 registered users utilised its minimum viable product (MVP), completing over 800 transactions. It is now also available in Kenya, while a recent partnership with BICCO, one of East Africa’s oldest money transfer services, will open its services to Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. It also plans to expand to Nigeria.

“​The feedback we have received thus far has been very useful and overall quite positive. People seem to love the simplicity and convenience which has helped sure up their regular use and seen the base grow through recommendation to their friends and family,” Shidane said.

DagDag, which takes a cut on the commission paid to remittance companies on payments made through its platform and offers it to customers for free, is bidding to make the whole industry more transparent and get more people sending money online, thereby saving money.

“The remittance industry is traditionally undertaken at physical locations with senders filling in forms and queuing to pay at the counter, and can be time consuming, onerous and complicated,” said Shidane.

“The marketplace is filled with many competing providers, from the well-established like Ria and Western Union, to emerging fintech providers like WorldRemit and TransferWise, to the more niche players like Dahabshiil and Bicco Express. Each provide different services, exchange rates and commissions, so it’s impossible tell which one will offer the best value for money.”

DagDag wants to help with all that, while also offering providers a space where they can offer their services and reach out to new audiences. The bootstrapped startup is planning in raising external finance in the near future, and is busy coping with demand.

“We’ve seen a lot of demand for the service, from as far afield as Russia and Cyprus. Finding payment providers that can cover these regions has been difficult as the aim is to keep the cost of sending minimised, instead of doing multiple conversions before the final delivery,” said Shidane. “Ultimately what we want to find is global providers we can work with, or even niche ones that can cater to the growing demands we are seeing.”

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Nigerian fintech startup Riby, which has developed software that enables informal cooperatives, trade groups or credit unions to better manage their members, savings and investments, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage investment fund Microtraction.

Riby, which has raised the funding to assist the next stage of its growth trajectory, has built a cloud-based core banking application for cooperatives that digitises their operations.

It also provides additional customisation such as KYC, customer onboarding, agent management tools, data analytics, loan performance monitoring, credit scoring and automation of engagement channels to enterprise partners like banks, insurance companies, state governments and development finance institutions that seek to engage these cooperatives.

Microtraction invests up to US$65,000 in startups at the very earliest stage of their development, and has recently backed a host of Nigerian fintech startups, namely CowryWise, Bitkoin Africa, Wallet.ng, Allpro, Thank U Cash and Accounteer.

“Riby’s future lies in the ability of the team to keep helping cooperatives automate, manage and digitise their operations. This will expand and improve their appeal to keep attracting members and ultimately helping these members get better access to cheap financing from larger financial institutions, banks and development finance agencies,” said Microtraction investment associate Dayo Koleowo.

“Also, considering they now have more strategic partnerships with banks, telecoms and government agencies to further increase the economic impact on these cooperatives and improve the lives of their members, we are simply excited about what the future holds for the company.”

You can read Disrupt Africa’s full interview with Microtraction founder and managing partner Yele Bademosi as part of our Meet the Investor series here.

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Price comparison platform Pricelookers has launched in Nigeria, leveraging artificial intelligence to provide a comprehensive price checking service for all e-commerce sales in the country.

Pricelookers launched in September with the goal of being the easiest-to-use, uncluttered and intuitive user interface for everyday Nigerian web users shopping online.

The platform currently allows users to compare prices of products available on Jumia, Konga, Payporte, Kara, Slot and Kilimall; with further e-commerce sites to be continuously added with the aim of listing all products available to buy online in Nigeria.

The startup uses intelligent crawling technology to gather information on products available on e-commerce stores in Nigeria, and relies on artificial intelligence to ensure the highest precision in product matching – so users can locate prices for the exact same products without having to try various different searches.

“Price comparison websites are convenient and time-efficient platforms for users to save money by comparing prices across multiple stores, as well as for users to explore all the available shopping options offered by these stores. Whereas countries such as USA, UK and India have mature price comparison websites, there is a dearth of such sites in Nigeria,” says Mark Melton, founder of Pricelookers.

The existing price comparison sites in Nigeria have a number of major drawbacks, Melton says. They list from only a handful of the e-commerce stores available, only show a subset of the products offered by these stores, and prices are often out of date.

Products are also often not correctly matched, so it becomes a laborious process for users attempt to compare prices of a specific product.

Melton believes Pricelookers can address all these issues through its reliance on intelligence technologies; with the startup currently focusing all its efforts on indexing all products available to buy online in Nigeria – with monetisation and marketing not priorities for the moment.

“Our priority is to develop a near perfect, highly reliable price comparison machine which users can trust and rely on for their daily price comparison and window shopping needs,” he says.

“Our end goal is to become Africa’s e-commerce gateway, to become the doorway to shopping for all Africans.”

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African startups are among the projects to have secured grant funding from the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity (FRP), which has provided nine companies from seven countries with more than US$9 million to support projects that expand financial inclusion in rural areas.

The nine companies were selected from more than 300 firms competing in the first two phases of the fund’s 2017/2018 rolling competition, which launched in June 2017 and closed in January 2018.

Mastercard’s goal with the fund is to find and support providers of innovative and scalable financial products and services that improve the lives of poor people living in rural areas of Africa. Financing for another group of companies, assessed as part of the third and fourth phases of the competition, will be announced in 2019.

Phase one selected companies include Kenyan agri-tech startup Apollo Agriculture, which received US$1.09 million to assist in further rollout of its customised package of farm inputs and advice on credit to rural farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ugandan solar startup SolarNow bagged US$740,000.

Among the phase two selected companies was Ghana’s Farmerline, which leverages innovative mobile technology to extend access to financial services, information, and high-quality input directly to farmers resulting in increased yields and incomes. The startup secured US$692,000 in grant funding.

“For African-led ventures or entrepreneurs solving problems in their own communities or country, it can be a struggle to attract the right capital and resources to scale. There are daily challenges around perceived risk, ability to execute and proof of traction,” Alloysius Attah, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Farmerline, told Disrupt Africa.

“This funding from the Mastercard Foundation comes with the credibility and endorsement that is rapidly unlocking new forms of capital and is pioneering a wave of investors that are boldly investing in entrepreneurs who understand the problems and are building generational solutions from lived experiences. At the time when the continent is battling the question of extreme youth unemployment and job creation, the work of the Mastercard Foundation in supporting youth-led ventures becomes important today more than ever.”

The nature and geographical diversity of the new projects saw the Fund expand its presence to four additional Sub-Saharan countries: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mali, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity portfolio now includes 30 projects in 11 countries in Africa.

“We are excited to add nine more companies to our growing portfolio that is having a positive impact on the lives of millions of people across Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Wambui Chege, team leader of the Fund for Rural Prosperity. “Today’s announcement reinforces our belief that there is a wide range of innovative, Africa-led projects that, with a little support, can drive financial inclusion across the continent.”

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South African technology investment firm Naspers is to refocus its attention on its local market with the launch of Naspers Foundry, a ZAR1.4 billion (US$96 million) fund to help tech entrepreneurs grow their startups.

Naspers is one of the largest technology investors in the world, with operations and investments in more than 120 countries and markets. Most recently it has focused its attentions on non-African markets, while staging a withdrawal of sorts from South Africa’s e-commerce sector, but a new initiative will see its double down on investments at home.

The ZAR1.4 billion (US$96 million) Naspers Foundry initiative was announced at the inaugural South Africa Investment Conference 2018 in Johannesburg last week. It aims to fund and support South African technology startups seeking to address big societal needs.

“Technology innovation is transforming the world. The Naspers Foundry aims to both encourage and back South African entrepreneurs to create businesses which ensure South Africa benefits from this technology innovation,” said Naspers chief executive Bob van Dijk.

“The group started in South Africa and understands the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of South Africans. We believe the best ideas often start locally, with passionate entrepreneurs starting businesses that meet the needs of the communities they know best. And when those needs are universal across the markets we know well, with the right backing, there is the future potential for their businesses to grow beyond their home market.”

Naspers chief financial officer (CFO) Basil Sgourdos said the company brought much more to the table than just funding.

“We understand what it’s like to build and grow tech businesses, and we share that knowledge to help them succeed. We also recognise the important role that local businesses can play in boosting local economies, which in turn boosts the wider South African economy. That’s why a significant portion of the Naspers Foundry investment will be focused on black-owned South African startups,” he said.

Naspers Foundry is part of a wider initiative that will see Naspers invest a total of ZAR4.6 billion (US$316 million) in the South African tech sector over the next three years. Aside from investments in new startups, the company has also allocated ZAR3.2 billion (US$220 million) to the development of its existing technology businesses, which include OLX, Takealot and Mr D Food.

The Naspers Foundry will launch during 2019 and further announcements will be made in due course.

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Lagos-based tech hub GoDo has opened its doors to startups, aimed at fostering collaboration between entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, policymakers and entrepreneurial support organisations.

Located in Ikeja, GoDo will support Nigerian tech startups through workspace provision, capacity building, incubation, business mentoring, access to networks and resources, and dedicated events.

The hub’s target audience is small businesses with big ideas, which it wants to help thrive and contribute significantly to national and global GDP, while also empowering them with access to economic opportunities and meaningful social connections.

“We conceptualised and developed GoDo to serve as a platform to engage startups to contribute more to economic growth and development, and to assist investors interested in sourcing ideas from innovative startup founders,” said Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, founder and executive director of GoDo.

“As the name implies, we desire that at this hub, numerous life-transforming business dreams would be actualised to meet the yearnings of people in Nigeria, Africa, and the world at large.”

In the next three months, the hub will announce its incubation programme.

“This is because, for us as a social enterprise with a mission to continually fuel, support and grow a startup community, we would constantly introduce programmes that would help aspiring entrepreneurs to start and scale and thereby create the jobs of the future,” said Agbata.

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Nigerian startup NextCounsel has formally launched its offering, which helps law firms with case and document management, automated time and billing, human resources and accounting.

Launched in November 2017, NextCounsel has built an intuitive solution that captures the major aspects of a law firm’s day-to-day processes, including a Document Management System and Case Management System.

It reduces overheads and operating costs for law firms, optimises their output and turnover, and creates historical data that enables forecasting and budgeting.

Samson Adegunle, chief operating officer (COO) of NextCounsel, said the team had noticed that very few law firms were making use of practice management solutions, which adversely affected their performance.

“Also, the firms that were using practice management solutions make use of foreign solutions that cannot cater for for our indigenous services. We needed to create an indigenous practice management solution that caters to the needs of law firms in Nigeria and Africa,” Adegunle said.

“We also wanted to provide a comprehensive solution that allows law firms to scale up in terms of efficiency, work ethics and overall performance.”

Thus far, the angel-funded startup has been able to convert 95 per cent of the tier one law firms in Nigeria, and NextCounsel has already expanded into Ghana.

“We’ve been able scale from legacy price through to tier one law firms in Nigeria. Presently we are engaging tier two and tier three law firms to take our solution,” said Adegunle.

“We plan to expand to West, East and South Africa, and the rest of the world.”

NextCounsel has a subscription-based revenue model, with clients paying on a monthly usage basis. It has so far made over US$85,000 in sales revenue.

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Four Africa-based startups have been taking part in the PeaceTech Accelerator in Washington DC, which aims to scale startups on the cloud and solve problems related to peace, stability and security.

The PeaceTech Accelerator is an initiative of investment firm C5 in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, PeaceTech Lab and SAP NS2 that supports startups via a highly-experienced group of prominent international technology entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and peace innovators.

Its fifth cohort began the programme in September and graduate on November 9, and includes eight startups from five countries across three continents, from verticals as diverse as data analytics and professional services to agri-tech and cybersecurity.

They include two from Nigeria – employment platform Coven Works and affordable housing provider Muster – and two from Ghana – development startup Devless and logistics service Jetstream Africa.

The rest of the cohort is made up of startups from the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan.

“With two Nigerian and two Ghanaian startups, this cohort is testament to the strengthening ecosystem of tech entrepreneurs on the African continent. C5 Accelerate continues to be a fantastic source of pipeline for early stage impact investors who want to put their money to work by pursuing the double bottom line,” said Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, chief operating officer (COO) of C5 Accelerate.

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