South African startups snag 8 awards at the GSA Africa regional finale

Global Startup Awards (GSA) Africa  — the continent-wide Sustainable Development Goal-aligned tech innovation competition — have announced 60 regional winners at the regional finale. After scouring a pool of 7 589 entries, one winner per category per region was selected by an expert panel of 215 jury members, as well as the African public who cast 41 000 votes from around the continent. 

Opening the regional finale, Jo Griffiths, one of the founders of the Global Innovation Initiative Group (GIIG) which has brought the Global Startup Awards to Africa said, “Having worked across the entire innovation value chain on the continent for almost a decade, we saw the need to identify a credible vehicle to help scout all 55 African countries and connect an active global network. In other words, to enable startups to get seen, get connected but most importantly to get funded. To do so, we brought the Global Startup Awards to Africa.”

GSA is searching for Africa’s leading innovators with solutions that light, feed, industrialise and improve the quality of life for Africans

Startup of the Year:

• Warrior Eco (Burundi)
• Kubic (Kenya) 
• Garment IO (Egypt) 
• Lupiya (Zambia) 
• Salubata (Nigeria)

Best Newcomer:

• Ecoplus (DRC) 
• Emarat (Uganda)
• CliniDo (Egypt)
• Envisionit Deep AI (South Africa)
• Rouzo (Nigeria)

Founder of the Year:

• Divin Kouebatouka from Mvutu (Congo)
• Almaw Molla from Coffee Resurect (Ethiopia) 
• Mohamed Algawish from iSchool (Egypt)
• Jon Kornik from Plentify (South Africa) 
• Uche Kenneth Udekwe from Natal Cares (Nigeria)

Venture Capitalist of the Year:

• Ortus (Uganda) 
• Sylvester (South Africa)

Best Accelerator / Incubator Program:

• Kobo (DRC)
• Ennovate (Tanzania)
• AUC Venture (Egypt)
• Ocean Hub (South Africa)
• Space NGO (Benin)

Best Co-working Space:

• Given Back (Gabon) 
• La Plage (Mauritius)
• Makanak Office (Egypt)
• Workshop 17 (South Africa)
• Hub 30 (Nigeria)

Women in Tech:

• Ecoplus (DRC)
• Mipango (Tanzania)
• Tekeya (Egypt)
• Doctors E-Consult (Botswana) 
• Kitovu Technology Company (Nigeria)

The competition entrants have proven that there are solutions available that could make an immeasurable difference to climate change and to the lives of Africans and those beyond

Agri Tech:

• Freshbag (Cameroon)
• Biobuu (Tanzania)
• Zr31 (Egypt)
• Netagrow (Zambia) 
• DigiExt (Ghana)

Health Tech:

• Nucleus Biotech (Cameroon)
• My Health Africa (Kenya)
• 3 elagi (Egypt)
• Dawa Health (Zambia)
• Wala Digital Health (Ghana) 

Commerce Tech: 

• Smartbox (Cameroon)
• Rwazi (Mauritius)
• Kaoun (Tunisia)
• CIRT (South Africa)
• Chekkit (Nigeria)

Industrial Tech:

• Congo Food Processing (DRC)
• DiscoverBrands Systems (Kenya)
• Zelij Invent (Morocco)
• Lign Organic (South Africa)
• Treepz (Nigeria)

ESG Tech:

• Kubic (Kenya)
• Douar Tech (Morocco)
• Scarab Tech (South Africa)
• Scrapays (Nigeria)

Griffiths concluded the festivities by saying, “I would like to remind everyone of the significant opportunity for the 60 winners who will go on to compete in the next round of the competition when we identify our 12 African winners. Not only will the final 12 then compete on the global stage, but they will also be offered funding from the GIIG Africa Fund, which will enable them to scale while also assisting them from a capacity-building perspective. Our ultimate goal is to invest in and create future markets across the continent. And this is just the beginning!”

The full list of winners per region can be found by clicking on the links below:

Southern Africa

Eastern Africa

Western Africa

Northern Africa

Central Africa

Read more: Global Startup Awards Africa aims to recognise top innovations

Featured image: by Lagos Techie on Unsplash