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TechInAfrica — The Seedstars Summit Africa 2019 has announced its 10 winners. Held in Johannesburg, South Africa, the summit is a competition for startups from different countries in Africa. First emerging through pitch contests and mentoring in more than 20 African countries, the participating startups had their opportunity to pitch to an audience that included a number of investors focusing in Africa.
In this year’s edition, more than 40 startups participated in the Seedstars Summit Africa. During a four-day period, the Summit assisted startups to restructure their pitches, identify bullet points that would be interesting to investors, and network to gain new connections across the continent.
Here are the 10 startups who emerged as winners:
Exuus (Rwanda): A piggybank startup that helps people to save and invest their money.
mVocia (Ghana): A lending platform that helps small and medium companies secure loans based on their invoice data.
Pezesha (Kenya): A secure Peer to Peer marketplace platform that allows Kenyans to loan to Kenyans securely via M-Pesa.
Teheca (Uganda): A medical startup that connects new parents to nurses for in-home postnatal care services and support.
OKO Finance (Mali): provides smallholder farmers in emerging countries with index insurance and other farming-related services.
Afrikamart (Senegal): An agritech company that helps farmers address issues around market access, logistics, and sustainable agricultural practices.
Nadji Bi (The Gambia): A clean energy solution that uses solar power to provide electricity to a potential 1 million customers.
Vectra (South Africa): A digital commerce company that builds retail solutions and e-commerce services for customers.
Roque Online (Angola): An e-commerce solution that helps merchants in the informal sector to get online, sell and deliver their products to customers.
Crop2Cash (Nigeria): A Nigerian startup that is building financial services for farmers and helping them send and receive money.
All the winners will have the opportunity to pitch at the Seedstars World Summit in April next year in Switzerland to win the $500,000 prize money.
Two other startups took home individual prizes for the potential impact of their solutions.
They are OKO Finance, the startup from Mali, which won the Job Creation Track sponsored by the African Development Bank (AfDB), and Zafree, an Ethiopian startup that is manufacturing paper sustainably without cutting trees, which won the DOEN Foundation Land Restoration Prize. The DOEN Foundation Prize is a $10,000 prize that could contribute Zafree to scale its business and develop its manufacturing operations.
Source: techcabal.com
