The W22 batch of the Y Combinator program is presently in session and will culminate with a demo day in March. Y Combinator has played a role in the early days of firms such as Airbnb, Coinbase, and Dropbox, among others.
At a demo day, participants earn initial funding as well as additional investment options. The accelerator’s S21 edition has the most African participants yet, with 15.
With almost 230 organizations now committed to participate, five more African names have been added to the list, bringing the total number of African participants to 15, which is equivalent to the number of African participants in S21. More W22 participants are expected to be unveiled in the coming months, both before and after demo day.
Nigeria accounts for 11 of the 15 African participants so far, with four of the five firms added to the list. Remedial Health, a pharma-focused health firm; Duplo, a fintech startup that strives to digitize cash flows for B2B companies; Grey, originally Aboki Africa, which offers foreign currency wallets for Africans; and Heyfood, a food ordering and delivery platform for restaurants.
The fifth startup, Boya, is based in Kenya and allows businesses to rapidly provide corporate cards to employees as well as providing software that allows them to control and monitor all spending in real time.
Startups including Flutterwave, Paystack, and Kobo360 are among Y Combinator’s graduates (not to mention Cowrywise, Kudi, MarketForce, WaystoCap, Healthlane, WorkPay, Trella, CredPal, 54gene, NALA and Breadfast).
The accelerator’s standard transaction size has climbed to US$500,000. YC had previously invested US$125,000 for 7% equity, but as part of its new standard offer, it will now spend an additional US$375,000 in an uncapped SAFE with “Most Favoured Nation” (MFN) terms.
The accelerator has an equivocal place in the continent’s startup environment, but entrepreneurs praise it for the beneficial influence it has had on their enterprises.
Here the 5 African startups joining the W22 batch:
Remedial Health
Remedial Health, which was founded in 2019 by Samuel Okwuada and Victor Benjamin, provides a suite of digital solutions that make it a lot easier for healthcare providers to obtain economical and genuine retail medications, consumables, and medical devices from producers and suppliers.
It already operates in six Nigerian states and is connected to over 100 pharmaceutical producers and distributors, including GSK, Pfizer, and Astrazeneca, as well as Nigerian companies Orange Drugs, Emzor, and Fidson Healthcare.
Remedial Health previously secured $1 million in pre-seed funding to help neighborhood pharmacies and Proprietary Patent Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) have access to affordable and authentic retail medications. The company also intends to grow into other Nigerian states.
Duplo
Duplo, founded in September 2021 by Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa, enabling B2B businesses to optimize payment inflows, consolidate at scale, and provide a seamless experience for business clients.
Duplo describes itself as a “financial operating system for B2B firms,” allowing businesses to handle all of their payment operations as well as provide financial services to their clients.
The platform is attempting to make cash extinct in Africa, where many distribution enterprises rely significantly on cash for obvious reasons.”
Because everyone understands how pricey cash is and how difficult it is to move with concerns like theft and fraud, we’re focusing on distributors, merchants, and aggregators to end the use of cash in this value chain.
As part of their value proposition, they assist organizations with automating, embedding, and launching payment products.” In a nutshell, inflows and outflows, automatic reconciliation for enterprises, and payments embedded in markets.
Grey
Formerly known as Aboki Africa, is a service that allows Africans to open overseas bank accounts. It offers the simplest way to send and receive international money without restrictions, according to the founders, Idorenyin Obong and Femi Aghedo.
Customers can open overseas accounts in British Pound (GBP) and Euro (EUR) at the moment, with plans to introduce United States Dollar (USD) accounts soon.
The company’s objective, when it first debuted in June 2020, was to make money conversion easier for Africans, starting with Nigeria. Its mandate, however, has recently been broadened to include additional international payment-related processes. “We’re establishing TransferWise for Africa,” one of the co-founders, Idorenyin, remarked.
Grey now allows its rapidly expanding client base to open overseas bank accounts, obtain their own IBAN, and send money anywhere in the globe from their accounts.
Heyfood
Heyfood has created the software that hotels, quick service restaurants, and food suppliers require to design and manage their food delivery operations.
Akinropo Taiwo started the platform in the year 2021 and is currently located in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Boya
Boya allows you to manage and issue corporate visa cards to your staff. Cutting costs is critical in today’s corporate world!
Boya gives you complete visibility over all of your expenditure, allowing you to identify areas where you may save money.
Boya, founded in 2019 by Alphas Sinja, allows businesses to pay for services in one place while maintaining control and visibility on your overall spending.
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