Google Launchpad Accelerator announces six African startup for fourth class

Four Nigerian startups and one each from Kenya and South Africa will join 27 other startups at the 4th class of Google’s Launchpad Accelerator.

The announcement was made yesterday by Google on the Google Developers Blog.

It’s the first time Google has opened the accelerator to startups from Africa and Europe.

Read more: JUMO first SA startup to be selected for Google Launchpad Accelerator

The six from Africa startups, which were among 33 startups chosen by Google, will attend a two-week bootcamp at Google’s headquarters in California from 17 to 28 July, and get six months ongoing support and mentorship and $50,000 in funding.

The 33 startups also include six from India; four from Brazil; three from Indonesia; two each from the Philippines, Mexico, Thailand and the Czech Republic; and one each from Malaysia, Argentina, Chile, Hungary, Poland and Vietnam.

In the latest accelerator class startups will be able to get more insight into machine learning and AI, to help them leverage Google’s latest technologies to scale their apps, Google said in the announcement.

The startups from Africa are:

• JUMO (South Africa): A financial services marketplace for emerging markets.
• Delivery Science (Nigeria): which develops mobile forms to help large organisations get field data
• Gidi Mobile Limited (Nigeria): Runs gidimo, a mobile learning platform that uses mastery learning & social gamification to deliver personal advancement, in a fun way, and at unprecedented scale
• Flutterwave (Nigeria): The startup builds technology and infrastructure for digital commerce across Africa starting with Rave, an app that helps merchants accept mobile money, cards and bank account payments across four African countries.
• Paystack (Nigeria): The company helps businesses in Africa accept payments from their customers.
• Twiga Foods (Kenya): A sourcing and distribution platform that replaces informal wholesale markets for fast-moving consumer goods.

Featured image: Robert Nyman via Flickr (CC 2.0, resize)