Nine African fintech startups selected for Catapult: Inclusion Africa bootcamp

The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) Foundation has announced the 14 fintech startups — nine of them from Africa — that have been selected for next week’s Catapult: Inclusion Africa bootcamp in Luxembourg. The announcement was made yesterday (1 November).

The week-long bootcamp — which will take place between 5 and 9 November — is aimed at fintech companies that that are focused on financial inclusion and keen to establish a link between Africa and Europe.

The bootcamp is sponsored by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs Directorate for Development and Humanitarian Affairs, as well as by PwC Luxembourg.

The LHoFT Foundation’s strategic partners InFine, University of Luxembourg, Professors without Borders, ADA, LuxFlag, Innpact, House Of Training, MicroInsurance Network, CGAP and KAP Innovation in Frontier Markets will also participate in the bootcamp.

The nine African fintech startups selected for the Catapult: Inclusion Africa bootcamp hail from Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda

The 14 selected startups will benefit from a tailor-made programme with intensive mentoring, coaching, peer-to-peer learning and dedicated workshops.

The bootcamp will also include sessions on business mapping, scaling business, understanding and evaluating metrics, investability, risk and capital, legal and marketing.

In a statement yesterday (1 November), the LHoFT Foundation said several modules which will be delivered by its partners will focus on the nuances of building businesses in Africa specifically, with sessions on microfinance relations, blockchain, as well as market trends and developments on the continent.

The nine African startups selected for the bootcamp hail from Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. They are:

Akaboxi (Uganda): Akaboxi provides rural communities with a more secure way of managing smallholder farmers’ savings.

Akiba Digital (South Africa): Akiba is a mobile savings app that helps tech savvy millennials save using alternative and behavioural data. The platform includes an AI bot that’s there to educate, nudge and provide insights to savers.

Four One Financial Services (Uganda): Four One Financial Services’ offerings include a micro-pension scheme and access to healthcare insurance.

Inclusivity Solutions (South Africa): Inclusivity Solutions designs, builds and operates digital insurance solutions for emerging markets with the aim of protecting and enhancing the quality of life of vulnerable people.

MaTontine (Senegal): MaTontine provides access to small loans and a range of financial services like micro-insurance for the financially excluded in Francophone Africa.

Nala (Tanzania): Nala is a mobile money application offering a single, unified wallet for transactions. The application functions without a data connection over 2G signal and provides users with an accurate breakdown of their spending habits.

SmartTeller (Nigeria): A digital banking platform for financial co-operatives, SmartTeller provides the unbanked and underbanked access to digital financial services.

Vouch Digital (Uganda): Vouch Digital is building an online digital supply-chain platform. The platform, among other things, helps simplify the distribution of cash in form of digital vouchers for purchasing goods or services such as hermetic storage, seeds, fertilisers, medical equipment, oil and gas among others.

WeCashUp (Cameroon, France): WeCashUp enables merchants to accept and disburse payments in cash, mobile money, bank mobile wallets, bank cards and crypto-currencies on their web or mobile apps in 54 African countries via a single API integration.