YCombinator, the American startup accelerator known for investing in early-stage startups has confirmed an additional eight African participants to its W22 batch, scheduled to hold its demo presentations next week. Seven of them are Nigerians, and one is Sudanese.
This underscores the expanding tech ecosystem in Lagos that has produced giants, including Flutterwave and PayStack, the latter now owned by Stripe, the American payments platform. Both PayStack and Flutterwave are alumni of the YCombinator program.
This brings the total number of African participants in this batch to 23, out of 350 in all. While 23 is a better number compared to S21 with only 15 African participants, they both show the significant work Africans have put in place to compete in the international market, typically with more regulations.
For instance, cryptocurrency has been banned in Nigeria, and the CBN regularly rolls out regulations that upend projects by tech founders seeking to provide solutions.
YC had earlier announced that it was going to be increasing the funds that it pumps into the participants from $125,000 to $500,000.
Meet the new eight participants below:
Payourse
Founders: Hakeem Adeyemi Orewole, Bashir Aminu and John Anisere
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
A startup that “builds the tools and infrastructure that make it easier, faster and cheaper for anyone in Africa easy, fast and cheap access to crypto and web3.”
Payourse offers p2p exchange off all things crypto. On Payourse, you can also exchange crypto with any currency even without setting up an account.
Simplifyd
Founders: Tomi Amao and Sam Keiru
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Simplifyd “enables businesses deliver their internet apps (websites/mobile apps) data-free, similar to toll-free telephone lines.”
It is a platform where app owners (businesses or individuals) can list their apps (mobile and web) so users can access them toll-free.
Sendme
Founder: Daniel Afolayan
Location: Ibadan, Nigeria
“An on-demand provider of clean meat to individuals and food businesses. We built a chatbot that lets customers place orders for meat on WhatsApp and they get it within 3 hours.”
Their products include cow meat, goat meat, chicken, and turkey.
Vendy
Founders: Kayode Disu and Peter Ekunkoya
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Vendy is a technology company that enables financial inclusion, especially in emerging markets and is focused on lower earners.
“Provides an alternative payment infrastructure without the need for a payment card or consumer app that enables customers pay businesses on their phones without internet access.”
Convoy
Founders: Emmanuel Aina and Subomi Oluwalana
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Convoy is a Cloud-native Webhook Service focused on creating solutions that are both fast and safe. The company provides fast, secure and reliable webhooks infrastructures.
“An open-source cloud-native webhook service, with out-of-the-box security, reliability, and scalability for your webhooks infrastructure.”
Curacel
Founders: John Flash Dada and Henry Mascot
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Curacel develops APIs that enable companies distribute insurance products and process claims faster. Some of their APIs & tools accelerate seamless insurance policy and claims assessments and enable distribution of insurance at scale.
“Making it easy and pleasant to get and use insurance in emerging markets. We are building the rails to make insurance work for the next billion Africans.”
Plumter
Founders: Yinka Elujoba and Eni Joshua
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Plumter is a payment platform that helps African businesses and consumers make easy cross border payments, i.e send money abroad. They also offer a virtual dollar card.
“Providing payment rails and APIs to help African merchants and consumers easily move money in and out of Africa.”
Bloom
Founders: Abdigani Diriye, Ahmed Ismail, Khalid Keenan and Youcef Oudjidane
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
Bloom is a fintech firm based in Sudan that provides investment opportunities that are mostly safe, and easy to understand.
“Stable savings for East Africa.”
While many of these startup founders are in for the investment, other participants look forward to the YC program as a way to collaborate with early-stage founders like themselves, network and meet other investors.
Ultimately, they are all solution-oriented, and funding will make enable their solutions reach as far as possible.
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