Big names are among 41 African startups in Lisbon this week for Web Summit

UPDATE (8 November): Subsequent to the publication of this story, Swiss medtech startup Nutrix was announced as Web Summit’s Pitch winner.

Forty-one startups from 13 African countries are in Lisbon this week to attend Web Summit, which kicked off last night and will run until Thursday (7 November).

The summit is one of the world’s biggest tech events, with the event’s organisers reporting on Friday (1 November) that all 70 469 tickets had been sold.

Among the big names from Africa due to speak at the summit are Swvl’s Mostafa Kandil, Twiga Foods’ Grant Brooke, Flutterwave’s Olugbenga Agboola, Lidya’s Tunde Kehinde, Vezeeta’s Amir Barsoum and TeamApt’s Tosin Eniolorunda.

The 41 startups hail from 13 countries in Africa (see the full list here). The five most represented countries are: Egypt (14), Angola (5), Nigeria (5), Rwanda (3), Kenya (3) and Tunisia (3).

Among the 41 startups from Africa that will attend Web Summit are big names such as Twiga Foods, Flutterwave and Swvl

Most of the African startups are from the fintech vertical, followed by ecommerce and retail, and enterprise software solutions.

While there are more African startups participating at this year’s summit than since its inception in 2009, the African contingent is minuscule — with a total of 2150 startups expected to pitch at this year’s event, according to a statement on Friday by the event’s organisers.

Angola’s Appy to battle 134 other startups

Angolan startup Appy is among the 135 startups shortlisted from 900 applications, for startup competition Pitch, which brings together the world’s leading early-stage startups for a live on-stage battle.

Appy — which was founded in Luanda in 2015 by Pedro Beirão and Jorge Cohen — allows users to book appointments, order medicines and subscribe to health insurances.

Startup Showcase

In addition, seven African startups will take part in Startup Showcase — a new stage at Web Summit 2019, which startups can showcase their solutions. They are:

Bonako Games (Cape Verde) which aims to change the rules of the video games market.

Botme (Egypt), a chatbot building platform that helps businesses to turn conversations into sales.

Complete Farmer (Ghana) which offers an end-to-end digital agriculture platform that makes it easy for industries to source for food raw materials and for anyone to own a farm.

Expat.com (Ghana) is the largest support network for expatriates, helping 2.6 million members make their expat project a success.

Nafasi (Kenya) is a global social enterprise platform that uses blockchain to support job creation in the developing world.

Ovarc (Egypt) aims to jump start your business kitchen in Africa. No operations, no hassle. Not to mention our Tangle-Powered Automation Software to help you.

Takestep (Egypt) claims to be the first addiction virtual treatment facility, that connects the stakeholders of the addiction recovery process.

Ventureburn editor Stephen Timm is in Lisbon to attend Web Summit.

Featured image: Praça de Luís de Camões, Lisbon (Stephen Timm)