Visa has announced the 3rd cohort of its Africa Fintech Accelerator!

The cohort features 19 incredible startups from across the continent 🌟. These companies are building solutions in embedded finance, SME lending, and digital/neobanking, showcasing the continued innovation and potential within Africa’s fintech ecosystem.

What’s particularly exciting for me is seeing blockchain pioneers making the cut! Shoutout to Melanin Kapital, Kredete, and Block Markets Africa for representing the growing synergy between traditional Fintech and Blockchain, we could even squeeze in the amazing team at OkHi Smart Addressing with a strong use case for the industry. 🚀

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Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator Announces 19 Startups for Third Cohort

Visa has unveiled the 19 startups selected for its third cohort of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator

These startups, representing 21 African countries, span various fintech subsectors, from embedded finance to digital banking.

The three-month program will provide these startups with mentorship, tools, and industry connections to scale their solutions. It will conclude with a Demo Day where they will present to investors and potential partners.

Visa’s investment in four startups from its first cohort—Oze, Workpay, OkHi, and ORDA—highlights its commitment to supporting the digital transformation of Africa.

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The 19 startups participating in Cohort 3 of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator include:

1. Credable (Kenya)
   Credable is a digital banking platform that helps businesses and financial institutions across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) embed financial services into their core offerings.
2. Fixa (Rwanda)
   Fixa is an end-to-end staffing platform. Their software enables quick sourcing and deployment of on-demand blue-collar workers to businesses across Africa.
3. Kacha (Ethiopia)
   Kacha is the first fully licensed private payment instrument issuer in Ethiopia, offering mobile money, bill payments, and remittances through their platform.
4. Melanin Kapital (Kenya)
   Melanin Kapital is building a carbon neobank for African businesses to access green loans and carbon credits.
5. Umba (Kenya)
   Umba is a fully licensed digital microfinance bank, offering bank accounts and financial services to customers in Kenya and Nigeria.
6. Zendawa (Kenya)
   Zendawa is enabling neighborhood pharmacies to sell online and use embedded finance services.
7. Enza (Egypt)
   Enza helps banks better engage SMEs with mobile-led acceptance and extends banks’ current offerings to SMEs with lending and deposits.
8. Moneco (Algeria)
   Moneco is a neobank that links Europe to Africa with the aim of easing access to bank accounts for the African diaspora.
9. MoneyHash (Egypt)
   MoneyHash consolidates multiple payment APIs into a single integration point, simplifying the payment and routing process for their merchants.
10. WafR (Morocco)
    WafR has developed a digital wallet that allows informal merchants to market financial services across Morocco.
11. Block Markets Africa (South Africa)
    Block Markets Africa uses real-world asset tokenization to build open financial markets infrastructure (FMI) and institutional applications.
12. Jabu (Namibia)
    Jabu provides a suite of cash management and digital financial service products across Southern Africa.
13. Ordev (South Africa)
    Ordev is an aggregated middleware platform that integrates digital services and providers for retail and hospitality businesses across Africa.
14. Sticitt (South Africa)
    Sticitt simplifies school-related payments to increase collections from parents and the wider community while reducing admin work.
15. Bumpa (Nigeria)
    Bumpa is powering digital commerce for retail and D2C businesses in Africa.
16. Kredete (Nigeria)
    Kredete is a digital lending marketplace that provides an all-in-one credit infrastructure for borrowers and lenders across the continent.
17. NearPays (Nigeria)
    NearPays is a full-service payment platform for businesses to pay, accept payments, transfer funds, and track cash flow.
18. PaySika (Cameroon)
    PaySika is building the first challenger bank in Central Africa, empowering both individuals and SMEs to receive IBANs and transfer money across Africa.
19. WeWire (Ghana)
    WeWire is a B2B cross-border payments solution to help businesses easily collect and pay their vendors, suppliers, and trade partners.