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Cameroonian startup MooExams is aiming to positively impact educational outcomes in Africa by gamifying the process of learning and preparing for examinations.

A subsidiary of gaming startup SDK Games Africa, MooExams is an interactive, gamified and innovative educational tool.

“It capitalises on young people’s love of technology to boost engagement in education, improving skills while having fun,” co-founder Christian Yves Fongang told Disrupt Africa.

MooExams’ interactive content includes a directory of courses, questions and answers on different subjects consistent with the local educational curriculum. Students are motivated to improve their skills through online competitions, and all content for games is provided by teachers, who refer the app to students and are rewarded based on the performance of the students they refer.

“The teachers enrich the platform with content by using an interactive and gamified system. Through that gamified platform, they are not just submitting content, they are also able to anonymously review content provided by others,” Fongang said. “Parents are also welcome to follow their children’s progress through MooExams.”

The platform was conceived in 2016, when members of the SDK Games team were, as parents, concerned about the level of interest their children were taking in school and realised that was the same for many others.

“In Cameroon, according to the Baccalaureate Office board, more than 50 per cent of students failed their national exam and up to 72 per cent are failing in other African countries,” said Fongang.

“Meanwhile, children are attracted to games, and they are also very enthusiastic about technologies and smartphones. Having discovered the power of gamification in the learning process while building a gamification campaign for a corporation, we applied this knowledge to the MooExams project. We strongly believe this should be used the make the learning process easier and more fun for our children.”

In Cameroon, a bilingual country, MooExams is ahead of the curve, but though there are competitors in other African countries, none of them use the platform’s unique gamification features for students and teachers. The self-funded startup, which makes money through subscriptions and targeted advertising, has already registered more than 3,000 students in Cameroon, and is looking further afield.

“We signed a contract with Orange Burkina Faso to launch the same product there under the name “S’Cool”, and plan to reach out to other Francophone African countries in 2019/2020 and then to Anglophone countries later in 2020,” Fongang said.

Making the platform affordable is key to MooExams scaling.

“For MooExams to be successful as a tool to help our youth it must be accessible and used often. Therefore, our goal is to make the product price reasonable. We believe that the large sums that families are spending on tutoring and special tools serve to make the reasonably priced MooExams attractive,” said Fongang.

“So we are combining sponsorship from companies willing to support youth education, targeted advertising so universities and higher institutions can enhance their message to students, and direct outreach to potential students and families directly through our platform.”

All in all, though, he sees great potential for these types of applications.

“The field of education is an ideal environment for the application of gamification. It can be applied to both solitary and interactive learning, across various subject matters,” he said.

The post How Cameroon’s MooExams is gamifying education appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Applications have opened for the second edition of the MEST Africa Challenge, which is offering US$50,000 in equity investment to startups based in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ivory Coast.

Run by pan-African training programme, seed fund, incubator and hub the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), the challenge is aimed at post-revenue, tech-enabled startups that want to expand into new markets.

Applications are open here until February 15 for the challenge, and regional pitch events will take place at the end of February. Finalists from each country will attend the MEST Africa Summit in Nairobi in June where they will compete for the US$50,000 in equity investment and the opportunity to join the MEST incubator community.

“This year we’re looking for the continent’s most exciting African scale-ups who are ready to expand into new markets, and continue building world class solutions for African problems,” said MEST managing director Aaron Fu.
The inaugural MEST Africa Challenge last year saw over 700 applications across four markets. The overall winner was Accounteer, a Nigeria-based cloud accounting company, which took home the funding and a space in the MEST Incubator Lagos.

The post Applications open for $50k MEST Africa scale-up pitch competition appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Startups based in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa have been invited to apply for the Go Global Africa programme, which provides support to companies looking to establish operations in the United Kingdom (UK).

The UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is launching a new International Tech Hub Network in 2019, in partnership with the British High Commission in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

As part of this, Go Global is offering startups a unique opportunity to collaborate with the UK. The programme has been designed to prepare post-MVP startups for the next stage with a focus on enhancing business skills, experiential learning through peer to peer engagements with other startups in the UK ecosystem, and key learnings around how to think about and tackle a future global expansion.

Beginning on March 23, the Go Global will support startups through a host of workshops delivered by UK-based experts, professionals and business executives, innovation sessions with corporate incubators and accelerators, and meetups and networking opportunities within London’s startup community. The two-week programme concludes with a demo day. Participants will receive one mentoring session a month for three months following the UK trip.

Startups applying for the programme must be in the post-MVP stage with a live product in the market and demonstrable evidence of some customer traction, have raised less than GBP2 million (US$2.6 million) in funding, and be active in fields aimed at creating a better future for Africa, such as transport, energy, water, connectivity, health, fintech and agri-tech. They must also have ambitions to expand regionally and internationally in the future.
Interested parties must apply before January 30, with judging panels to take place during the week of February 7-14.

The post Expand your startup to the UK with Go Global Africa programme appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Dominique Collett is senior investment executive at Rand Merchant Investments and the head of AlphaCode, a South African incubation, acceleration and investment initiative that identifies, partners and grows early stage financial service ventures.

Here are her fintech predictions for 2019 based on what AlphaCode is seeing with its members.

Digital banks

The introduction of TymeBank, BankZero and Discovery Bank will no doubt shake up the industry and give customers greater choice. It will also force the incumbent banks to respond by refining their customer value propositions and user experiences. As a result, we expect to see greater focus from the traditional banks on their digital channels.

We also anticipate new entrants from other industries – mobile network operators are relooking at mobile money products that focus on payments offerings. Other non-bank players such as insurers and retailers will continue to advance into the banking space.

Cryptocurrency

There has been a lot of attention on cryptocurrency given the meteoric rise last year and then the collapse in the Bitcoin price. Some industry watchers are calling this the death of crypto. I disagree. There has undoubtedly been a huge crash but crypto’s current market cap is just under US$150 billion. This may be small in global asset class terms but it is not insignificant.

Cryptocurrency is here to stay. It’s not clear if and when cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will hit their $20,000 peak again but investing in cryptos is a long-term investment trend and shouldn’t be viewed over the short term. Tim Draper, one of the world’s best venture capitalists, remains bullish on crypto over the long-term. The smart money is still investing in this asset class despite the volatility.

I think that one of the positive outcomes of the crash is the collapse of initial coin offerings (ICO). Almost $10 billion was raised through ICOs in the first half of 2018, but a study done by ICO advisory firm Statis Group showed that more than 80 per cent of these were scams and investors lost significant cash. With the collapse of the crypto price, ICOs look less attractive and I believe this is a positive trend. Investing in a new asset class requires extensive research, as many who lost a lot of money in ICOs discovered painfully last year. So there is likely to be a significant reduction in the number of ICOs as a form of capital raising.

Hopefully we will also see a reduction in the number of crypto investment and pyramid schemes, mainly driven by greed. Many have lost a lot of money. Crypto is a very volatile, risky asset class that is highly speculative. Don’t invest in it unless you really understand the technology and the asset class and even then, don’t over invest. There really is no easy way to make money. If you do make the decision to invest, make sure you buy, sell and store through trusted exchanges like Luno.

Regulators are also likely to get more involved in the industry – most have fintech and cryptocurrency working groups and they are ensuring they have a good understanding of the asset class.

Insurtech

We expect to continue to see activity in the insurtech space. 2018 saw lots of new, interesting entrants like Indie, Naked and Pineapple who are backed by big institutions. I think it is difficult for these niche insurers to scale quickly but expect these players to grow and new entrants to appear in the market. Players like Root Insurance make it much easier for new insurance entrants to get to market with their open API software backed by Guardrisk.

We can expect incumbent insurers to ensure greater focus on their digital offerings to compete with these new entrants, and this is good news for consumers. We will also see non-insurance players like mobile network operators, retailers and banks entering the digital insurance space.

More savings products

We’ve seen the launch of robo-advisors like OUTvest which aim to attract younger customers through their digital offering and simplified investing process. Alternative savings platforms like Easy Equities, which make it easier to invest in equities, have grown. We expect to see more entrants in this space like Akiba and Franc growing their market share.

Focus on financial inclusion

In our recent AlphaCode Incubate initiative, which identifies South African financial services entrepreneurs with extraordinary ideas and businesses that could impact the financial services industry, we saw a lot of businesses trying to solve the problem of financial exclusion and ways to provide low income customers with relevant financial services products. These businesses will gain traction in 2019 as they mature. Prospa, for example, provides a low-income savings product while iSpani provides marketing and sales access for insurers in townships.

Innovative SME financing solutions

Given the focus on growing the South African economy, it is imperative to build SMEs. Coupled with the pressure for corporates to transform their supply chain as new BEE charters are adopted, we will see an increase in the number of SME financing solutions that enable black SMEs to gain greater market access. I am most excited by models like Nisa Finance and InvoiceWorx that have innovative offerings for SMEs. I also think we can expect a business banking shake-up in the SME market, given that Capitec is moving into the SME space through its acquisition of Mercantile Bank. That’s a game changer.

More funding options

We’ve seen a number of international venture capitalists invest in South African fintechs in 2018 – for example Yoco and Jumo. I think this is a positive trend highlighting the maturation of our local fintech industry and I believe we will continue to see interest from international players. We will also see more local funding such as Naspers Foundry which will be exciting for the fintech space. Banks in particular will start noticing South African fintech successes.

Hot fintech startups to watch in 2019

Pineapple, a digital insurer, aims to decrease costs, cap profits and deter fraud in an effort to create more value from an insurance policy than the traditional model.

Akiba allows you to track your savings goal, keep focused and get rewards for saving.

Franc is South Africa’s cheapest way to invest. It allows stokvel members to invest in money market and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) free.

Prospa is a savings platform for people earning between ZAR2,000 (US$140) and ZAR8,000 (US$570)s a month.

Nisa Finance is an invoice financing platform that enables financiers to issue invoice-backed loans to small businesses quickly and affordably.InvoiceWorx is an inventory financing platform that gives small retailers access to lines of credit from suppliers.

The post South African fintech in 2019 – what can we expect? appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Startups from Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ethiopia are invited to apply for the GrowthAfrica accelerator, which helps startups scale and become investment ready.

GrowthAfrica works with innovative growth stage companies across the continent, helping them with business acceleration, strategic advice and facilitation in access to investments.

Over the past seven years it has run 18 programmes with 180 companies, who it has helped raise over US$42 million in funding and create more than 24,000 jobs.    

Applications are now open for the latest GrowthAfrica Business Scaleup Accelerator Programme in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zambia, which will see 15 entrepreneurs selected in each country and put through a programme with modules on things like growth strategy, financial modelling, and investment support, and featuring mentorship and networking opportunities.

GrowthAfrica is looking for for-profit, post-revenue businesses with an innovative product, service or methodology that are ready to scale and open to raising external investment as part of their growth strategy. It is open to startups in all sectors but especially focused on agribusiness, education, mobile solutions, fintech, renewable energy, health, manufacturing and e-commerce.

The programme’s first phase consists of 18 workshop days spread over a six months period. After each workshop startups will work in-company with the assistance of external business experts, GrowthAfrica growth catalysts and financial modellers to implement their new strategies and innovations.

The second phase of the programme involves 24 months of one-on-one support from the GrowthAfrica team, a pool of external business leaders and support by GrowthAfrica’s investment facilitation team.
Applications are open until January 31. Startups can apply here for Zambia, here for Kenya, here for Uganda, and here for Ethiopia.

The post Applications open for GrowthAfrica accelerator programme appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Nigerian startup Delivery Science is using its Fieldinsight product to help consumer goods companies gain insight into smarter deployment of their people, assets and products out in the field.

Delivery Science was founded in 2014 after co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Lanre Oyedotun’s haulage business was dealt a huge blow by a driver stealing a product that was to be delivered to a customer.

Oyedotun looked for a solution to such problems, and when he couldn’t find one locally, decided to build it. The result was Fieldinsight, a mobile solution that helps organisations gather relevant data, and manage and monitor field activities through near real-time visualisations.

It helps companies know more about their target customers by collecting data about them in a structured way, accept orders from customers from the field and online, accept payments, and obtain real-time information about delivery of goods and services.

“Eighty per cent of the workforce in businesses operate in the field. These range from field sales, to delivery personnel, to distributors. Our goal is to help these people work more efficiently,” Ore Omolaja, VP for distribution at Delivery Science, told Disrupt Africa.

“For businesses who have limited facts and visibility over their field operations, Fieldinsight enables the collection of data in the field using mobile and IoT devices, stores it offline, and forwards once it is connected to the internet.”

The startup was one of those selected to take part in Google’s first Launchpad accelerator in Africa and 2017, and has grown its team to over 25 people. It has raised a host of funding rounds over the last few years, and is planning on expanding to neighbouring countries after seeing strong uptake in Nigeria, where it operates a subscription model.

“We identified that within the supply chain and logistics space is a considerable information lag between individuals who work in the field and executives in the office,” Omolaja said. “This is largely due to the inefficiencies during data collection at every stage of the supply chain. We discovered that the lack of infrastructure, data connectivity and lack of data collection standards were contributing factors towards these inefficiencies.”

The post How Nigeria’s Delivery Science enables better field management appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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The UNICEF Innovation Fund is looking to make equity-free investments of up to US$100,000 in startups using data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) or similar technologies.

UNICEF has rolled out a host of individual funds in recent years, including ones for blockchain, VR and drone startups, and backed the likes of South Africa’s 9Needs and Tunisia’s Utopixar.

Its latest call for applications, which is open until February 28 and relevant to startups registered in one of UNICEF’s programme countries, is targeting startups using data science, machine learning and AI startups in a variety of ways.

UNICEF is looking for companies using new sources of data such as satellite imagery or social media and applying data science or artificial intelligence techniques to understand the physical world that we live in, as well as companies trying to generate new insights from existing data.

The post UNICEF Innovation Fund seeks data science startups appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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South African public transport data and technology startup WhereIsMyTransport has secured US$1.85 million as part of its Series A funding round, and gone global by adding the first Indian, Southeast Asian and Latin American cities to its platform.

Formed in 2016, WhereIsMyTransport connects and collects data in emerging cities, integrating this information on its open data platform.

Its products are then used by cities to coordinate and monitor services, operators to integrate their systems and optimise service, and passengers who access the platform through apps and endpoints connected to the WhereIsMyTransport platform.

The startup, which secured two funding rounds back in 2017, has now announced an investment of US$1.85 million, led by Liil Ventures and including existing investor Goodwell Investments, as part of its Series A funding round.

This investment has been secured as WhereIsMyTransport expands its digital mapping of formal and informal public transport networks into new emerging markets, including its first data collection projects in India and Latin America. Data for more than 30 major cities in emerging markets is now available on its integrated mobility data platform.

With the expansion into the Latin American market, facilitated by Liil Ventures, the company wrapped up 2018 with its biggest data collection project to date – collecting the world’s most complete dataset for integrated formal and informal public transport in the Mexico City metropolitan area.

“We are delighted to welcome Liil Ventures to our global team, alongside trusted partner Goodwell Investments. Liil is an investor experienced in our sector, and a loud advocate for our market-leading technology. Not only are we strategically aligned, Liil also brings significant go-to-market value in the Latin American market, and a complimentary portfolio including Cabify and What3Words,” said Devin de Vries, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at WhereIsMyTransport.

Nadim Matuk Villazón, investment principal at Liil Ventures, said the investment firm was excited to back the startup and keep supporting resilience in emerging cities around the globe with reliable mobility data and technology.

“WhereIsMyTransport is a promising team of global urban innovators that helps governments in emerging markets to improve public transport networks and invest in better mobility services for everyone,” Villazón said.

Wim van der Beek, founder and managing partner at Goodwell Investments, said poor mobility in emerging markets was a huge social issue that had been overlooked for years.

“WhereIsMyTransport’s data and technology has a direct and sustainable positive impact on the livelihood of hundreds of millions of excluded households in these markets,” he said.

“WhereIsMyTransport and its solutions are perfectly aligned with our investment strategy, and we are thrilled to continue to support the company and its mission for social change.”

The post SA’s WhereIsMyTransport raises $1.85m, expands globally appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Venture capital (VC) firm Oui Capital has launched a US$10 million fund for investments in innovative tech startups from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

Oui Capital has been launched by, among others, Oluwaseun Oyinsan, previously in charge of investments at Ingressive Capital, an early-stage venture fund that has made investments in the likes of Paystack, Wifi.com.ng and OgaVenue.

The new US$10 million venture fund is dedicated to backing high-growth tech startups in Africa, while simultaneously offering mentorship services from technology and industry experts. It will invest in companies in spaces such as fintech, mobility, healthcare and education.

“With Oui Capital, we will make funding available for early-stage technology startups on the continent. Africa is undergoing a transformation largely driven by technology – similar to the Asian boom of a decade ago which has created over 200 unicorns to date.  It is pertinent that ventures like Oui Capital are available to finance this transformation to create wealth and impact,” said Oyinsan.

“We are mostly interested in companies which are solving real problems with scalable solutions, technology companies solving the everyday problems of Africa’s 1.2 billion people. Our very early-stage investments support startups with significant  growth and impact potential.”

The post New $10m VC fund to invest in tech startups from Kenya, Nigeria, SA appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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When Abu Cassim started Jozi Angels as an informal endeavour with some friends, he did not imagine four years later it would be an established company with over 30 investments.

Part of the family that owns and operates Fashion House, the Johannesburg-based textiles firm that turns 80 years old next year, Cassim spent the best part of 10 years in asset management in South Africa and Dubai, before studying for an MBA at IE Business School in Madrid.

He now heads up Jozi Angels, which has built a sizeable reputation but only started on an informal basis four years ago.

“A few friends and I were running a non-profit in the startup space when I began assisting high-net-worth-individuals on a few startup investments. We formalised the company in early 2017, bringing the individuals together as a group,” Cassim told Disrupt Africa.

Since then it has grown the network to include 23 investors, become affiliated with the Global Business Angels Network (GBAN), African Business Angel Network (ABAN) and South African Business Angel Network (SABAN), and made over 30 investments, backing the likes of experiences platform Tour 2.0, fitness app FitKey and e-commerce platform Momslist.

“Most of our investments are in Gauteng as we prefer being close to portfolio companies but we have made investments in Cape Town-based startups as well,” Cassim said.

Jozi Angels is not a fund – investments are made by individuals or syndicates.

“The investors are then direct shareholders in the businesses. Our investors are typically entrepreneurs in their own right, they have built successful businesses and are now looking to give back, have fun and hopefully make a return on investment,” said Cassim.

“Angel investing is a people’s game. We invest in people and need to connect with the people we back. We typically look for energetic game changers that are doing something unique. Our requirements often look similar to that of a VC, but we invest at an earlier stage. In order of importance, we look for a strong team, innovative idea, product-market fit and potential scale.”

He said the angel investor market in Africa is ten times smaller than the venture capital market in terms of capital invested, meaning businesses like Jozi Angels have a lot of hard work ahead of us.

“Our aim is to grow the network to 50 angels during the course of 2019. We’ll look to integrate into the business and corporate communities while finding ways of improving the quality of deal flow at the same time,” Cassim said.

He does feel the group is operating in the right market, however.

“We wouldn’t be investing if we didn’t believe in this market. The market is still young and we’re slowly developing our own narratives – we can’t copy-paste what’s happening in the US. Over the six years I’ve been active in the South African tech space, I’m seeing a lot more interest from all corners: corporates, students, business professionals and investors. The momentum is there but we have a long way to go,” he said.

That said, challenges remain.

“I get a few hundred funding applications a month. Most young businesses lack creativity and those that are unique struggle to find early adopters. We tend to back companies that have both these elements,” Cassim said.

More support is needed to ensure more entrepreneurs succeed, especially on a government level.

“Being an entrepreneur is one of the biggest challenges anyone can undertake and there will never be enough support. The challenge ahead for policymakers is the competition coming from innovation hubs like Mauritius, Nairobi, Lagos and markets like Rwanda that are smaller but more agile. Like all good entrepreneurs, policymakers need to continue to innovate and move forward,” said Cassim.

The post Meet the Investor: Abu Cassim, Jozi Angels appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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