Kenyan SMEs are battling it out for billions in funding from potential investors in a contest similar to America’s business reality show Shark Tank.
Nine startups who are part of the inaugural cohort of the Safaricom Spark Accelerator Programme took on the investor demo day, to market their innovations and the potential of their businesses to grow.
The investor demo day is the final phase of the accelerator programme for the nine start-ups and is aimed at enabling them to raise funding from leading venture capital funds.
“At Safaricom, we believe technology is a catalyst for change and solutions and that is why we incentivise and support innovative start-ups with the tools they need to reach the next level,” said Safaricom CEO, Peter Ndegwa.
The start-ups who include Health X Africa, Vunapay, BlackRhino VR, Twiva, Chpter, Churpy, Nobuk Africa, Faidi HR and Chumz represent the future of Embedded Finance, SME Productivity Tools, Digital Content, Healthcare, and Future Fintech.
The Safaricom Spark Accelerator programme is a partnership with Sumitomo Corporation and M-PESA Africa that aims at accelerating early stage startups to grow and scale their businesses.
Other partners include iHub who are the implementing partner and AWS, Vodacom and PwC as supporting partners.
The Spark Accelerator program was launched last year following the restructuring of Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund.
The program is committed to fostering transformative growth within Kenya’s tech ecosystem by supporting early-stage start-ups.
Safaricom Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer, Michael Mutiga, said that last year, Kenya emerged as Africa’s leading investment hub, attracting $638 million in venture capital, which accounted for 29 per cent of the continents total funding.
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