Here are the regional winners of the inaugural Southern Africa Startup Awards

The 15 regional winners of the inaugural Southern African Startup Awards have been announced, with SA companies having taken home just short of half of the awards.

The 15, who hail from 14 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) economic bloc, were announced last Thursday (23 November) at the awards grand finale held at an event in Johannesburg.

In a statement on Medium yesterday, Southern Africa Startup Awards COO Flo Mosoane said the winners had been selected following a “rigorous process” of nominations, public voting and adjudication.

SA companies walked away with seven awards at the inaugural Southern African Startup Awards

Winners of six of the 15 categories — namely the Startup of the Year, Best Newcomer, Founder of the Year, Best Startup Accelerator and Incubator, Best Co-working Space and the People’s Choice award — will now compete with winners from six other regions around the world at the global finals which take place next year.

SA equity investment platform EasyEquities won the Startup of the Year award for which the platform, which is a subsidiary of The Purple Group, was awarded prizes that include assistance scaling to multiple territories in Africa and the UK.

The other winners received web services to the value of R150 000 by Kaskade.Cloud.

Almost half of the awards, seven in total, were won by SA companies. The inaugural regional winners were:

Startup of the Year: Easy Equities (SA)

Female Role Model in Tech: Lilian Makoi (Tanzania)

Founder of the Year: Kennedy Liswani (Namibia)

Best Startup Ecosystem Initiative: Simodisa (SA)

Best Student Startup: EcOrganics (Mauritius)

Best Social Impact Startup: Yapili (Botswana)

Best Food or Agri Tech: LimaLinks (Zambia)

Investor of the Year: Lireas Holdings (SA)

Best Accelerator or Incubator Programme: Startupbootcamp AfriTech (SA)

Best Co-Working Space: CoWorkLab (Mozambique)

Best Newcomer: Intergreatme (SA)

Best EduTech Startup: Kamaleon (Mozambique)

Best Fintech Startup: Easy Equities (SA)

Best Water Crisis Management Solution: Solve Namibia (Namibia)

People’s Choice: Lynette Hundermark (SA)

Read more: Here’s who won at the SA finals of the Southern Africa Startup Awards