African tech accelerator, Startupbootcamp Africa, together with anchor partner and telecom giant, Telecel Group, have announced their selection of cohort 3 participants of the Africa Startup Initiative Program.
The accelerator programme aims to support the next generation of early-stage African Tech startups that are disrupting key industry verticals.
These include fintech, insuretech, agritech, climate tech, e-commerce, digital health, clean tech, mobility, micro-leasing, and digitizing the informal economy.
Kenya’s fintech firm, Kyanda Africa is among the 11 selected to participate in the accelerator program.
The fintech platform, co-founded by Collins Kathuli, 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 and dependent on the users’ needs.
The other selected participants include BD Waste (Ghana), Chestify AI Labs (Ghana), Jand2Gidi (Nigeria), Limawa (Côte d'Ivoire), Moja Ride (Côte d'Ivoire), Parkwell (Nigeria), Pharmaserv (Nigeria), SafeTrack (Morocco), Sodishop (Mali), and Yoonema (Senegal).
The participants will receive three-month coaching and support program to accelerate their growth and benefits worth $750,000.
The 2023 cohort will also have access to the global accelerator squared platform which has a complete library of content, and group workshops.
They will also have access to one-on-one mentoring and collaborative sessions with in-residence entrepreneurs and invite-only discussion forums with founders from around the world.
The program will take place in Dakar, Senegal and startups will be hosted at the D-hub, a space commissioned by DER/FJ.
The Accelerator programme has managed to help founders fine-tune their business models while facilitating entry into new markets such as Senegal.
This was made possible through a partnership with DER/FJ, which was established to advance Entrepreneurship for Women and Youth in Senegal by the President of the Republic, His Excellency Macky Sall
Telecel Group executive deputy and ASIP director Eleanor Azar said that Telecel is proud of the great effort that was put into the new cohort of the accelerator program powered by SBC AfriTech.
She said the startups have innovative and positively disruptive ways of treating the African challenges that they have set out to solve and build their startups around.
“To those who made it into the top 10, I wish you all luck, You should be proud that you have come out on top of more than 2,000 applications received into the program,” Azar said.
Others partners include the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO), AWS Freshworks, Google and Firstbase.
Program director Henry Ojour said that 20 per cent of the new cohort had applied before, 50 per cent applied on the recommendations of an alumni founder and all were post MVP and post revenue with a few in the growth stage.
“We’re excited by the quality of startups in this cohort. These companies are building in over 12 verticals and we have a 30 per cent female-founder ratio. It’s going to be 13 weeks of far-reaching progress and impact,” he said.
The ASIP Accelerator powered by SBC AfriTech will climax in a Demo Day on May 25 where startup founders will pitch their disruptive solutions to a broad audience of media, investors, corporate partners, and industry stakeholders.