Telecel Group, Africa’s leading tech Accelerator and Startupbootcamp AfriTech, have selected 11 participants for the cohort 3 of the much-coveted Accelerator Program, the Africa Startup Initiative Program (ASIP), and they include two Ghanaian start-ups.
The final 11 were selected out over 2,000 applicants. The two Ghanaian start-ups that made the cut are greentech start-up BD Waste, a digital health start-up Chestify AI Labs. The nine others are from Nigeria (3), Kenya (1), Mali (1), Cote d’Ivoire (1), Morocco (1) and two from Senegal, where the program will be held for 13 weeks.
Africa Startup Initiative Program (ASIP), founded by Africa-focus telecom operator Telecel, aims to support the next generation of early-stage African tech start-ups that are disrupting key industry verticals that include FinTech, InsureTech, AgriTech, Climate-tech, eCommerce, Digital Health, and CleanTech, Mobility, Micro-leasing, and digitizing the informal economy.
Telecel Group Executive Deputy and ASIP Director, Eleanor Azar said, ”we are very proud of the great effort that was put into this cohort 3 of the ASIP Accelerator Program powered by SBC AfriTech – we have exceptional start-ups with innovative and positively disruptive ways of treating the African challenges that they have set out to solve and build their start-ups around.”
She also noted that the number for female start-up founders has increase and Telecel is exceptionally proud of that, adding that those who could not make it to the top 11 should be proud of themselves for having been even chosen out of the 2,000 applicants.
Participants will receive an intensive three-month coaching and support program to accelerate their growth and benefits worth $750,000. The start-ups will also have access to the global Accelerator Squared platform, which has a complete library of content, group workshops, one-on-one mentoring, collaborative sessions with Entrepreneurs in Residence, and invite-only discussion forums with founders from around the globe.
The program will take place in Dakar, Senegal and the start-ups will be hosted at the D-hub – a space commissioned by DER/FJ under the auspices of Senegalese President Macky Sall, who established DER/FJ) to advance Entrepreneurship for Women and Youth in Senegal.
In a keynote, Senior Innovation Lead Adrien Schwarz at DER/FJ said, “We are impressed with the work that the ASIP and Startupbootcamp AfriTech are doing and are excited that there were three times more Francophone founders compared to the previous years. This validates the caliber of startups in Francophone countries and shows that their exposure to acceleration has improved. It is also wonderful to see the progress that the past Senegalese start-ups namely Proxalys, Parcsmart, and Yobante have made.”
Meanwhile, Program Director for ASIP, Henry Ojour said “We’re excited by the quality of start-ups in this cohort,” adding that “about 30% of them have applied before, 60% applied on the recommendations of an alumni founder and 50% of them have monthly revenues above $50,000.00, and 30% of them have female founders.”
A joint statement from Telecel said the intrinsic value of start-ups in Africa lies in their ability to build fast and effective solutions to pressing challenges. Over the years another key aspect has come to the fray; scaling across borders. The ASIP Accelerator has managed to help founders fine-tune their business models while also facilitating entry into new markets such as Senegal.
Other partners include the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO), AWS, Freshworks, Google and Firstbase.
Below is the complete list of participants and what they each do:
BD Waste is a Ghanaian GreenTech startup that combines fintech and sustainability to recover Plastic waste from communities. Their Digicycle product allows customers to directly deposit plastic waste into their digital wallets and receive credit for it. This credit can be used to purchase data packages, airtime, food items, stationery, and health insurance.
Chestify AI Labs from Ghana provides an AI platform that gives a highly accurate algorithm for diagnosing chest X Ray pathologies. Two-thirds of the world’s population of over 5 billion people with no access to a radiologist and radiologic diagnostic support tools and Chestify’s mission is to aggressively tackle the socio-economic and health distress created by inadequate radiology Infrastructure and the presence of fewer radiologists in Africa.
Kyanda Africa is a revolutionary Kenyan fintech platform that provides businesses and individuals with convenient and reliable money transfer solutions. The startup has a network of agents, API gateway, and various access channels such as USSD, Mobile App & WhatsApp Chatbots making the services customizable dependent on the users’ needs.
PharmaServ is a Nigerian SaaS product, which automates the process of sales orders, tracking sales team performance, and reconciling incoming purchase orders, payments, and invoices for health brands. This is a labor-intensive process that is still predominantly manual for most local companies in emerging markets.
Sodishop is a Malian marketplace, an online sales and purchase platform, present in 4 countries in West Africa, we deliver thousands of orders per month across Mali, Senegal, Guinea and the Côte d’ Ivoire.
Limawa, whose Senegalese founder operates in Côte d’Ivoire aims to tackle the issues of food conservation and transportation through solar-powered splits air conditioners that can reach -2°C (designed in CI by our team). Limawa offers an innovative and cost-efficient alternative to industrial compressors for the cold chain industry. This solution is suitable for trucks, containers, and trailers.
Parkwell is a Nigerian online sharing Platform that matches drivers with available, safe parking spaces and helps property owners list their parking spaces for optimum use. The digital parking platform integrates parking facilities and connects it to mobile for a seamless experience.
Jand2Gidi, also from Nigeria, offers ‘Logistics as A Service’ to B2B and B2B2C customers whose users are engaged in cross-border trade. They have built shipping APIs to provide the same hassle-free, transparent, and trackable shipping services to their B2B merchants to enable them grow faster after nearly a decade of building robust, cutting-edge freight forwarding and last mile delivery services.
Moja Ride from Côte d’Ivoire has made its mission to enable better and cleaner mobility services to African cities by making financing easy and accessible for all transportation professionals. Drivers and transport companies can easily qualify for new car loans and car repairs by simply working with Moja Ride’s advanced digital fare payment and booking technologies.
SafeTrack is a Moroccan technology startup that allows a 75 % reduction in water consumption for irrigation at 20 % of the price of its competitors. Their IoT solution of geolocation and monitoring 100 % mobile, simple maintenance and which does not require any IT infrastructure. Composed of revalued smartphones and sensors and other affordable devices, and a cloud software platform developed internally.”
Yoonema is a Senegalese social e-commerce platform that offers a frictionless, unique and
simplified experience to e-buyers who desire quality products and B2B players who offer a full global e-commerce experience to their clients. The ASIP Accelerator powered by SBC AfriTech will culminate in a Demo Day on 25 May 2023 where startup founders will pitch their disruptive solutions to a broad audience of media, investors, corporate partners, and industry stakeholders.
