Julie Ako (co-Founder, Albantsho) Creative Nigerian tech startup, Albantsho, which offers a suite of easy-to-use screenwriting tools for African creators, has launched its latest feature tagged The Scriptwriter. Currently available free of charge to users across Africa, The Scriptwriter ensures that screenwriters are able to create polished stories that meet formatting requirements of international standard. The platform rivals similar tools with its block-based script editor that has user-friendly interfaces. Says Julie Ako (who co-founded the startup with Nikita Mokgware) in 2020: “The creative aspect of screenwriting can be very mentally demanding, but that doesn’t mean professionals can afford to focus…
Just In
Tripitaca (re-branded as Triply) started business in the CEO mother’s house, but today supports more than 2300 guesthouses across Kenya by streamlining their operations and helping them grow. Peter Wachira is the CEO of Tripitaca. In 2019, at the age of 22, he launched his own agency to manage small guesthouses in Kenya, and in two short years, he was handling over 1,000 Airbnb-type guest houses across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. While at it, Peter realised how difficult and splintered it could be to run a guesthouse, for some of the following reasons: – Bookings were made on paper or Excel…
Olumide Olatunji (Managing Director, Access Bank Ghana) Access Bank Ghana has been named the SME-Friendly Bank of the Year at the recently concluded 2023 BRANDCOM Awards – in recognition of the bank’s ‘exceptional dedication to providing SMEs with access to customized financial solutions, business advisory services, and innovative tools that enable them to thrive and contribute to Ghana’s economic growth’. In reaction to the award, Olumide Olatunji (Managing Director, Access Bank Ghana) said: “We are honoured to receive this prestigious recognition, which reflects our unwavering commitment to supporting the growth and success of SMEs in Ghana. “SMEs are the backbone…
(L-R): Pricepally co-Founders Luther Lawoyin (CEO), Deepak Bansal (CTO), Mosun Lawoyin (CXO) and Jummai Abalaka (COO) Pricepally, a Nigerian online grocery store for fresh produce and packaged food, has raised $1.3 million seed funding, backed by Samurai Incubate (a Japanese VC that also participated in the startup’s 2021 pre-seed round), SOSV, ELEA, Hi2 Global, Chui Ventures and ex-Unilever executive David Mureithi. According to Pricepally, this latest round of funding will serve to expand beyond three Nigerian cities (Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt), and re-introduce group buying in order to keep up with its promise of enabling consumers purchase food affordably. The startup facilitates same- or next-day delivery of…
Botlhale AI, specialists in multilingual speech and text conversational AI for African languages, have won the Startup of the Year award at the just-concluded Africa Tech Festival, held in Cape Town, South Africa. Founded by Sange Maxaku, Thapelo Nthite, and Xolisani Nkwentsha, the company is breaking language barriers for African businesses and their customers by unleashing the power of human language technologies in African languages. Team Botlhale AI Simply put, Botlhale AI is redefining communication by helping organisations engage with customers in languages they trust and understand, using methods ranging from Multilingual Chatbots to Call Centre analytics.
🎥 @IDC It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), and IDC South Africa in collaboration with the Graça Machel Trust (through the Women Creating Wealth Programme) have selected 120 women-owned enterprises to participate in an Investor Readiness Programme, over a period of 18 months. Women Creating Wealth (WCW) is the Graça Machel Trust’s flagship entrepreneurship program designed to build women entrepreneurs’ confidence, skills and networks to scale their businesses and transition from income generation to wealth creation. The program has already impacted 1 000 women entrepreneurs in Malawi, Zambia Tanzania and South Africa and is currently being deployed additionally, in Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. The…
(L-R): Shekel Mobility co-founders, Sanmi Olukanmi and Benjamin Oladokun 📸 Shekel Mobility Shekel Mobility (SM), the B2B marketplace that empowers auto dealers to find, finance, and sell cars, has secured over $7 million in funding, comprising $3.2 million in equity and over $4 million in debt. SM helps car dealers find, finance and sell cars in the $30 billion African used car market, and intends to build the largest auto dealership ecosystem, with annual transactions worth $10 billion by 2025. According to co-founder, Benjamen Oladokun, the funds will be applied to quadrupling the startup’s current Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of…
(L-R): co-founders of Franc, Thomas Brennan and Sebastian Patel, Visa has selected 23 African startups for the inaugural cohort of its Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator, a program designed to support the growth of Africa’s vibrant fintech ecosystem. The startups will receive mentorship, training, and funding from Visa and its partners. Nigerian startups dominated the cohort of selected startups, followed by Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Uganda, Zambia, and Tunisia. The 23 startups include: Anchor (Nigeria): Provides APIs, dashboards, and tools for developers to embed and build banking products Dojah (Nigeria): Offers a comprehensive Know Your Customer (KYC) and digital onboarding…
Dimeji Sofowora Tito Ovia Adegoke Olubusi Helium Health Co-founders: Dimeji Sofowora, Tito Ovia and Adegoke Olubusi Here are the top 10 Nigerian startups, ranked by the amount of funds raised year-to-date in 2023 (source: Nairametrics Deal Book): Termii ($3.65 million) – In June, Nigerian communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) startup, Termii, raised $3.65 million to expand its product offerings. The new raise brought the startup’s total funding to $5.05 million having first raised $1.4 million in seed funding in January 2021. Termii’s CEO, Gbolade Emmanuel said the funds were not needed for operational activities but rather to power the company’s expansion initiatives,…
Wissal Ben Moussa (Co-Founder, Sand to Green) Wissal Ben Moussa is the proud co-founder and chief agricultural officer of Sand to Green, a Moroccan startup that can transform a patch of desert into a sustainable and profitable plantation in just five years. The company’s innovative irrigation solution is based on three pillars: Desalination: Desalination of sea water and brackish water is used for the irrigation of plantations. Thanks to a reverse osmosis technique and desalination units, fresh water is produced with minimised environmental impact and optimised costs. A drip system: An irrigation technique that brings the water necessary for plant…