Africa FinTech Foundry (AFF) has opened applications for startups, African innovators, and inventors who want to scale up their businesses. The incubator program aims to promote, stimulate, and contribute to the rapid growth of Fintech startups across Africa.
Africa FinTech Foundry
An initiative of Access Bank, Africa FinTech Foundry offers startups the needed training, skills, and capital to accelerate their growth and market, enabling them to provide relevant financial services to the continent’s unbanked population.
Through its accelerator program, AFF will create new opportunities for Africans and strengthen the continent’s startup ecosystem by shoring up the business capacity of startups, support business development, and facilitate access to capital, customers, and global innovation partners.
Africa FinTech Foundry also serves as a platform for showcasing best practices and the achievements of African owned/led Fintech solutions.
Program structure
The accelerator program which runs for 12 weeks is structured into 3 phases namely: design, pitch, and build.
Design
At this stage, startups are to build a clear proposition, justify assumptions, prove market viability. All this is will be done with the assistance of expert mentors and coaches.
Pitch
This phase helps startups to focus on refining their products, planning their finance, and executing a go-to-market strategy. The program will offer startups a network of customers to arrange partnerships and sales opportunities.
Build
This phase pulls together all the elements and gets startups, making them investment-ready. Lawyers, accountants, and pitch trainers will all be brought in to ensure each team has the needed skills and materials to pitch for and receive investment. This will be done on Investment Demo Day with angels, private equity, and venture capitalists in attendance.
Eligibility requirements
Startups that meet the following requirement are invited to apply:
- Been in operations for at least 6 months since the launch date
- Must have a technology-driven and unique solution
- Have and be able to execute clear monetization strategies
- Must be able to solve a need for a specific target customer
- Should be made up of a cross-functional team with a deep understanding of the market – which must include a technical lead and founder(s) that are fully invested in the business.
- Possess a secure position (IP; network effects; domain or region expertise)
- Have built a functional prototype with early traction
- Have the capacity to scale (via digital distribution or ability to scale sales)
- Have the potential to address global markets
If you’re interested and your startup meets the above-listed criteria, apply here.
Benefits of participation
- Up to $25,000 worth of services per start-up (Mentorship, Valuation, Marketing, and PR spend, Workspace);
- 12 weeks of mentorship from established founders, Access bank leaders, and industry experts;
- Access to a market network across Access bank’s customers and subsidiaries;
- Training on marketing, startup accounting, product design, mobile, user testing, and sales among others;
- Better pricing for payment capabilities (Account debit, Card transactions, and payment via link);
- Discounted cloud services/hardware and software subscriptions from our tech partners;
- Opportunity to earn strategic introductions to industry-specific investors.
Don’t miss important articles during the week. Subscribe to techbuild weekly digest for updates.
