African is witnessing the emergence of a technology revival. It is home to many startups that are changing the landscape. Every year Africa birth promising startups, many of who go on to have monumental impact on the society.
This articles aims to bring some of these startups together. Some countries feature prominently on the list such as Kenya and South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria, owing to the high wave of entrepreneurial activity as well as exposure to venture funds.
African entrepreneurs are not afraid to branch out into unfamiliar territories like medicine, payment, logistics and education. This article does not represent the financial strength of the startup nor does it present a guide for investment.
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Iyin Aboyeji, Jeremy Stoppleman
What it does: What it does is quite simple but bold. To transform Africa’s raw programming talents into one of the best in the world.
Why it is exciting: Abundant talents exist in Africa, but lack of exposure and opportunity will deny many Africans great opportunities. Andela hopes to gives young African developers this opportunity through training and development by connecting them with top companies in the world.
Image credit: Andela.co
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Chika Ofili, Lanre Oyediran
What it does: Delivery Science wants to assist consumer goods companies have better insight in the delivery of their goods through the use of big data.
Why it is exciting: The delivery of goods in Nigeria is quite fraught with corruption and inefficiency, Delivery science’s data driven model helps cut back on these leakages thereby saving money for companies through the use of cloud computing and big data.
Image credit: Deliveryscience.co
3. Ace
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Tunde Kehinde, Ercin Eksin
What it does: Helps connect individuals and small business with their goods to consumers throughout Nigeria and Africa using technology and infrastructure.
Why it is exciting: Ask any Nigeria businessman, he would tell you how difficult it is moving his goods from one part of the country to another. Ace is a game changer in Nigeria’s logistics industry; if it sticks to its mission it could take a huge slice in Nigeria’s $6billion logistics industry.
Image credit: Ace.ng
4. MyQ
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Ishiaku Gwamna
What it does: MyQ wants to assist Nigeria transport operators manage their queue and ticketing services through the use of a mobile app. It recently won the Seedstar Lagos pitch and would compete in the world event in Switzerland.
Why it is exciting: MyQ wants to make travel experience for Nigerians quite easy through the use of a mobile application for ticket booking and reservation. It also makes it easy for the transport operators through the use of loading management and vehicle queuing in the application.
Image credit: Google
5. Hellotractor
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Jehiel Oliver
What it does: Hellotractor wants farmers to have access to affordable farm machinery which would help boost food production. It wants to connect tractor owners in Nigeria to farmers directly through sms.
Why it is exciting: With Nigeria’s fast rising population, the need for food to be in abundant supply all year-round has become a top priority for the Government. By making it easy for farmers to have access to affordable tractors, Hellotractor is helping to ensure food security in Africa’s biggest economy.
Image credit: hellotractor.com
6. Simplepay
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Simeon Onunobi
What it does: An online processing startup. Simple pay wants to make merchants and smes providers receive payments for their products and services more easily.
Why it is exciting: Online payment processing is a bane of many Nigerians doing business over the internet and available ones like E-transact and Interswitch are quite expensive. Simple pay provides an affordable option for many smes.
Image credit: Google
7. Intellectric
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Seyi Oguntunde, Segun Busari, Adeyinka Amurawaiye
What it does: Intellectric is an energy company and wants to reduce the cost of power for homes and businesses by ensuring that power comes from one source thereby eliminating the stress people go through by trying to switch from one source to another.
Why is it exciting: Nigeria’s epileptic power supply has sent many companies to their early grave; Intellectric is trying to solve the stress and cost of switching to several power sources, which if not done properly can damage computer system.
Image credit: intellectric.co
8. Mbills
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Elvis Esharegharan
What it does: Mbills is a web and mobile application that assist users pay for services in Nigeria conveniently. It is designed for B2B and B2C platform serving individuals, companies.
Why is it exciting: Why would you board a bus, spend countless hours on traffic just to make payment for a service when you can easily do it with a click of button; Mbills is trying to solve this payment hassles.
Image credit: Google
9. Yuzah
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Ovo Emorhokpor
What it does: An app that connects diesel delivery owner to buyers. It provides a seamless platform where diesel trucker can easily get more customers thereby reducing their marketing cost.
Why it is exciting: Nigeria’s epileptic supply has made many Nigerians rely on diesel generators for power. With Yuzah app, diesel generator owners can easily find diesel distributors with a stroke of the finger. Distributors can also find clients easily without spending huge tons of money trying to gain clients.
Image credit: Facebook
10. Ikon tracter
Country: Nigeria
Founder: Adedayo Charis
What it does: Ikon tracker is a Bluetooth tracking device that comes with a mobile application. It helps its users track their most prized possession such as keys, kids, dogs, bus. It’s tiny and portable.
Why it is exciting: With rising cases of kidnapping and theft, Ikon Tracter would be very useful to owners trying to keep tap on their possessions.
Image credit: Ikontracker.com
11. Shieldfinance
Country: Kenya
Founder: Kenny R.
What it does: A fintech company that provides salary advance to employees quickly and conveniently at lower interest rate straight to their mobile phones.
Why it is exciting: With the rising cost of goods and services in Africa, many employers end up spending their salary before the end of the month leaving them in terrible situation, with Shieldfinance employers can now borrow money at quite a reduced rate to cushion the shock.
Image credit: Viz4africa.biz
12. Abacus
Country: Kenya
Founder: Joel Macharia
What it does: Helps investors make better decisions by providing them with access to real time market data, news and analysis.
Why it is exciting: Abacus does not just provide investors with analysis, it gives investors news surrounding their investment coupled with thoughts from experts and guidance from pro traders. It also has interactive text and video tutorials coupled with a social angle that helps one in becoming a better trader.
Image credit: Google
13. Bamba POS
Country: Kenya
Founder: Karogi kamau
What it does: A mobile app that allows retail merchants have access to point of sale and inventory management automation.
Why it is exciting: With Bamba POS, small and medium enterprises can feel more confident about their business. Bamba POS is not just another point of sale, it provides real time monitoring of your business coupled with analytic and support.
Image credit: Twitter
14. Bitsoko
Country: Kenya
Founder: Daniel Bloch
What it does: An android mobile wallet removing the cost of transferring money between two individual and increasing accesses to payment services.
Why it is exciting: Given the stress consumers go through in making payment, Bitsoko seems like a real solution. With Bitsoko consumers can pay and receive money from anywhere in the world, shop for goods and pay for their utility through one click.
Image credit: Google
15. Zatiti
Country: Kenya
Founder: Gagan Hayer
What it does: A web platform that allows sme’s create easy and cost effective e-commerce website.
Why it is exciting: With the e-commerce craze hitting African, Zatiti helps and guide retailers in setting up their e-commerce store easily without having to learn any coding or going through any technical details.
Image credit: Zatiti.com
16. Mitihealth
Country: Kenya
Founder: Jessica Vernon, Benjamin Jenson, Tammy Guo, Margaret Mumbi Mongare
What it does: Helps east Africa’s pharmaceutical companies have access to high quality medications through technology. Provides pharmacies with software that tracks their business and who gives them good medication.
Why is it exciting: Many pharmacies in East Africa have been battling with counterfeits and substandard drugs accounting for about 20 – 45% of the total drugs. Mithealth’s android based software application helps reduces the distribution of counterfeit drugs and poor quality medication in East Africa.
Image credit: Mitihealth.org
17.Cardplanet
Country: Kenya
Founder: Rodgers Mhandi and Sam Masinde
What It Does: It builds cashless payment systems using mobile money technology that helps business and organizations speed up their financial transactions.
Why it is exciting: It has launched three ingenious products into the African market; Instaid– which allows people send medical aid to people instantly.PesaCard– a smart card that uses Near Field Communication(NFC) for making payments and CampoCard-an ID card used by students in the university to make payments.
Image credit: cardplanetsolutions.co.ke
18. BRCK
Country: Kenya
Founder: Juliana Rotich, Erik Hersman, Ory Okolloh, and David Kobia
What it does: A portable device that provides internet connection in areas with weak infrastructure.
Why it is exciting: Brck is designed to work in harsh environment like Africa and can handle constant dropping and dust. It can last longer than conventional router, providing an 8 hours battery life. It can also handle surge and takes acre of reverse voltage. Brck also have a built-in global sim that can work in about 140 countries.
Image credit: brck.com
19. Soko
Country: Kenya
Founder: Ella Peinovich
What it does: An e-commerce platform that connects craftswoman in developing countries to global marketplace using simply a mobile phone.
Why it is exciting: For a very long time now African women have been creating handmade jewels that have gone to sell at a very huge prize in the developed countries but have left them poorer through the countless middlemen that operate within the artisan craft industry. Soko hopes to bring joy to these artisans by connecting them directly with the buyers.
Image credit: Shopsoko.com
20. Farmable
Country: Ghana
Founder: Kamal Yakub, Damian Brennan and Luis Grolez
What it does: An online platform that allows online investors make returns and helps smallholders farmers raise capital to run their farms.
Why it is exciting: Agriculture contributes about 54% to Ghana GDP and accounts for over 40% of their export earnings but it is still largely traditional. Farmable aims to assist farmers in developing countries have more access to funds, equipment, tools and machinery to build a sustainable food supply through a crowd-sourced community.
Image credit: Facebook
21. Forhey
Country: Ghana
Founder: Bakorkor Kelldick
What it does: With the use of a mobile app, Forhey provides the most convenient way to do your laundry and dry-cleaning in Ghana. Users can request immediate pickup or schedule for anytime.
Why it is exciting: Why do you need to go down the street to visit your laundry man, when you can just schedule a visit for him? Forhey is trying to digitize an unregulated and traditional industry with its slick app.
Image credit: Focaloid.com
22. Claimsync
Country: Ghana
Founder: Seth Akumani
What it does: It Provides software that enables health care facilities automate their patient record management and process medical records electronically. It provides a platform for insurance players to receive electronic medical claims easily.
Why it is exciting: Africans are buying up health insurance faster than projected but the process of vetting medical claims has been rigorous and time consuming. Claimsync reduces this time by about 30%, cuts down on the cost and improves the efficiency through the use of record management software.
Image credit: Claimsync.com
23. Asoriba
Country: Ghana
Founder: Jesse Johnson, Patrick Ohemeng, Jesse Johnson,Nana Opoku Ware Ofori Agyeman-Prempeh
What it does: A web based management software with an app that allows for seamless church administration that allows members to engage with each other members effectively.
Why it is exciting: No doubt Africa is a religious continent with numerous churches springing up every day. An application like Asoriba would surely be a must have in several of these mega churches. Asoriba is sitting on a goldmine if it pursues its goals persistently.
Image credit: Asoriba.com
24. Orgaroo
Country: Ghana
Founder: Selasi Tsikata
What it does: A web and app that allows events planners and people who coordinate conferences, official meetings, trips and other activities to manage and keep attendance on track with real time updates.
Why is it exciting: With Orgaroo you can import all the email address of your attendees and add them to a calendar. Never again would your event experience any hitch with Orgaroo.
Image credit: Orgaroo.com
25. Qurio
Country: South Africa
Founder: Paul Kim and Gareth Heuer
What it does: A survey/inquiry system that lets company’s get feedback from customers and employees and quickly retrieve detailed analytic data.
Why it is exciting: Qurio is trying to make it easy for anyone who wants to carry out research on any field using test, polls, quizzes and survey. It is very useful for carrying out any project where feedback and data are involved.
Image credit: Linkedin
26. Wumdrop
Country: South Africa
Founder: Simon Hartley
What it does: A South Africa Uber for delivery cars. Customers enter a pickup and delivery address on their smartphone and wait for a quote. Once the quote is accepted, a nearby delivery driver arrives to pick up their package.
Why it is exciting: Wumdrop allows anyone including drivers, cyclist, scooter drivers and even walkers pick up delivery from clients and dispatch to any location in South Africa. It also undergoes very strict check on its drivers to reduce cases of theft and unpleasant behaviors. Wumdrop’s simplicity takes off the stress associated with traditional courier services.
Image credit: Techcentral.co.za
27. Paperight
Country: South Africa
Founder: Arthur Attwell
What it does: It allow readers print out any books from any member print shop. The reader pays the printing outlet for the printout, the outlet then pays Paperight which in turn gives a share of that profit to the books copyright holder.
Why it is exciting: Most books are simply out of the range of most people due to the high cost of publishing. Paperight’s model is quite unique, it cuts out the publishers hence reducing the high cost of books and making it affordable and easily available.
Image credit: Techmoran.com
28. Tuluntulu
Country: South Africa
Founder: Pierre van der Hoven
What it does: A video streaming app that wants to deliver unbroken video at 30kbps, wants to serve a growing mobile consumer on the continent. It designed to work on mobile device connected via low bandwidth connections.
Why it is exciting: Video streaming is still relatively expensive in Africa as such most people rely on GSM/EDGE technology that runs at 50kbps. Tuluntulu promises to provide 12 videos, at 30kbps, at a much lower prize, which is a great offer for the growing numbers of internet users in Africa.
Image credit: Mducomics.co.za
29. Dropifi
Country: South Africa
Founder: David Osei, Kamul Nabong, Phillips Effah
What it does: An intelligent contact form that helps business and companies better analyze, visualize and respond to incoming messages.
Why it is exciting: Dropify helps companies understand and effectively respond to messages from their customers by analyzing emotional tones, demographics and industry trends by offering a more personalized customer service experience.
Image credit: Google
30. Mellowcabs
Country: South Africa
Founder: Neil du Preez
What it does: Rides are free; Mellowcabs offset running cost by using internet advertising models and banners ads directly on vehicles. It wants to add tablets on taxi to cash in on geo-location advertising.
Why it is exciting: It provides a cheaper means of moving people than any other type of vehicles because it relies less on transport fares and focuses more on advertising. Mellowcabs is not only an electric vehicle it is built with recycled materials which makes it super clean. They also operate in areas where buses and trains don’t work.
Image credit: Autoevolution.com
31. Snapscan
Country: South Africa
Founder: Kobos Ehlers
What it does: A convenient payment app that lets you pay for items through your phone by scanning a stores qr code. Customers simply scan the code, input how much they want to pay and hit the pay button.
Why it is exciting: Snapscan provides a more secure way of making payments. Users only need to enter their banking details once. Merchants can receive their money by getting a voucher code and then punching this code on an ATM.
Image credit: Google
32. Locname
Country: Egypt
Founder: Mourad Alashry, Zeinab Alashry and Mahmoud Moghazy
What it does: A web and mobile app that creates an address for any point on earth and gives a short, unique name, which you can then share easily in 2 sec.
Why it is exciting: Given the haphazard nature of most Africa’s cities, finding addresses of people and buildings can be sometimes confusing; Locname provides an easier way by replacing long addresses with a short and customized name.
Image credit: Facebook
33. Pieride
Country: Eqypt
Founder: Maie Elzeiny, Karim Elmansi, Rami Halim
What it does: Sends a car and driver to take you to/from work and pools you with individuals in your community to share cost.
Why it is exciting: Just like its slogan; Start enjoying Cairo’s traffic, Pieride differentiates itself from other carpooling startups by matching passengers with common interest, such as students of the same universities or workers of the same company to make the ride more enjoyable.
Image credit: Wamda.com
34. Instabug
Country: Egypt
Founder: Moataz Soliman and Omar Gabr
What it does: A bug reporting app that allows app developers communicate easily with their users
Why it is exciting: You have just discovered a bug; you don’t need to freak out. Just shake your device to send a bug report to the developer. This is how simple Instabug reporting app claims to be. As a developer you also just need a line of code to integrate into your app.
Image credit: Google
35. Bey2ollak
Country; Egypt
Founder: Aly Rafea, Mohamed Rafea, Gamal Sadek, Mostafa Beltagy, Yehia Ismail
What it does: A mobile app that allows users communicate with other road user by exchanging constantly updated information on the road.
Why it is exciting: Nobody likes being in a traffic hold up; especially one that could easily have been avoided. Bey2ollak allows road users to share real time updates on what happening on the road which would be vital in avoiding traffic congestion.
Image credit: Unpluggedweb.com
36. Pushbots
Country: Egypt
Founder: Amr Sobhy, Abdullah Diaa
What it does: A mobile app that allows app managers communicate with their users by sending notifications through a “tweet-to-Notify” service.
Why it is exciting: One of the reasons so many apps fail is that there is no feedback from the very users who use them. Pushbots notifications try to solve this, by increasing engagement between the users and app creators.
Image credit: Google
37. Airshop
Country: Ivory Coast
Founder: Francis Yapobi
What it does: Enables passenger to make special order of high value products in advance through duty free shops.
Why it is exciting: Airshop is trying to reverse the notion that duty free shopping is done on impulse buying. It does this by creating awareness of high value products; before passengers even touch down the Airport. Airshop connects airline travelers with duty free shops through the use of a web platform. Traveling can be fun but it can be more fun when we know certain high value products are available at a much reduced prize.
Image credit: Startupbrics.com
38. Tangotv
Country: Tanzania
Founder: Victor Joseph
What it does: Focuses on streaming services with African movies, videos, TV shows. Develops customized media streaming TV set-top boxes
Why it is exciting: Tangotv differentiates itself from other VoD startups streaming into Africa by its exclusive local content and relatively cheaper prize. It currently sells at $50 per set-box with a promise to reduce further as demand increases.
Image credit: Wikimedia
39.Roundbob
Country: Uganda
Founder: David Gonahasa
What it does: It helps showcase Uganda’s tourist destinations while also providing travel ticketing for bus and air and access to over 200 thousand hotels globally
Why it is exciting: Tourism is Uganda’s biggest foreign exchange earner after coffee according to Bank of Uganda. Roundbob wants to contribute to this growth by providing relevant information on tourist sites in Uganda through an online platform. It also has a service called Travel wallet, where tourist can set aside small amounts for travel and use such funds to book hotels, pay for air tickets, packages all on one application.
Image credit: Crunchbase.com
40. Feem Wifi
Country: Cameroun
Founder: Fritz Ekwoge
What it does: A file sharing utility for homes and offices using local networks through Wi-Fi. It provides free chat support to make communication inside your business or school local network easily as the file transfer.
Why it is exciting: The best communication are usually done around a small local group or network, Feem Wifi is aware of this, that’s why it has created it file sharing app to work easily with local network in a way that makes its painless and fun.
Image credit: Tryfeem.com
Country: Zimbabwe
Founder: Lovemore Jokonya
What it does: An online productivity calculator that helps organization determine their key drivers of productivity, helping them focus their energy on the right factors to improve overall productivity.
Why it is exciting: It is free, hence companies that sign-up have access to summary report on labor productivity, capital productivity, profit to value added ratio and labor cost productivity. Companies that want to have more information on their productivity will need to pay a small amount.
Image credit: Google
42. Koomzo
Country: Cameroun
Founder: Longchi Kanouo
What it does: Manages paper work for thousands of students and staff in educational institutions through an ERP platform. It automates the core school process both academic and administration.
Why it is exciting: Koomzo is a real cost saver. It operates on a SaaS model where by the school only pay per package without the need for a huge upfront fee. Koomzo is also very secure and makes the whole process quite simple.
Image credit: Koomzo.com
43. Roadrules
Country: Zimbabwe
Founder: Chikosi Tawanda
What it does: It wants to change the way individuals study, practice and prepare for their official learners driver’s license exam through an app.
Why it is exciting: Why do you need to take your official driver’s license exam more than once spending more than $40 in the process when you could just do it once? Roadrules is trying to tackle this problem by providing a platform where motor users can study and prepare adequately for this exam.
Image credit: Techzim.co.zw
44 . Safemotos
Country: Rwanda
Founder: Nash and Peter Kariuki
What it does: Helps connects customers to safe motors taxis across African cities, starting in Rwanda. It makes use of an application and allows users to choose a safemotos taxi driver. It requires driver to go through its strict safe motors entry requirement.
Why it is exciting: Would you pay to know if the next taxi you are about taking is on a killer mode? If yes then Safemotos is for you, it gives users information as to the safety of the drivers through an app used by the drivers that measures their speed during rush hour, the duration they have been driving, and how fast they accelerate and decelerate.
Image credit: Appsafrica.com
45. Pliby
Country: Benin
Founder: Patience Ogatcha
What it does: An online platform to discover underground artist, search for songs and albums through thousands of Africa songs. It’s a crowd-funding platform for discovering almost all artists and the local party scene.
Why it is exciting: With Pliby you don’t need a record label to promote you, what you need is people like you who believe in your music and would go any length to make sure you are a star.
Image credit: Propelinx.com
46. Jifunza
Country: Kenya
Founder: Derek Blair, Yves Niyonshuti
What it does: It creates a learning tool for African languages through an app called Menya; where users can create and share fun educational lessons on African language amongst friends, students and the world.
Why it is exciting: Jifunza’s Menya app differentiates from other African language learning app in that its high quality contents are produced by its many users who use the app through a template created by Menya. This makes it reach a high number of African languages very fast.
Image credit: Techmoran
48. Mergims
Country: Rwanda
Founder: Muhire Louis-Antoine
What it does: A mobile application that allows African diaspora to easily pay for fees for their loved ones.
Why it is exciting: Mergims low service charge of just 5% compared to traditional payment charges of 10% is what makes it exciting. Mergims also works in the international market competing with payment giants like Western Union and Money Gram.
Image credit: Google
47. Fidel
Country: Ethiopa
Founder: EskinderMamo
What it does: It enables African have access to curriculum based content on their mobile phones, laptop when offline and online.
Why it is exciting: Fidel is Ethiopia’s first E-learning platform which wants to help increase the literacy rate in Africa’s second most populated country. With Fidel, students can access the site even when offline. Fidel also has a social side and it’s highly personalized.
Image credit: Google
48. Saphon Energy
Country: Tunisia
Founder: Hassine Labaied, Anis Aouini
What it does: It researches and develops wind energy. It develops the zero wind blade converters that can act as a water pump as well as provides internet connectivity.
Why it is exciting: To halve carbon emission by 2050 it would cost us about $45 billion, according to International Energy Agency (IEA). Saphon is trying to reduce this cost through it bladeless wind technology. Saphon bladeless turbine is cheaper to maintain than the bladed turbines, it also produces more electricity than the bladed turbines with the same swept area.
Image credit: Saphon Energy
Country: Tanzania
Founder: Adam Camenzuli
What it does: It provides a clean and affordable solution to energy needs in the form of a standing lamp which provides light and enough power to charge cellphones.
Why it is exciting: Karibu Solar Panel is a real life changer to millions of African communities. It greatly reduces the cost many Africans go through in trying to get energy, replacing the energy inefficient and costly kerosene lamps with its green solar lamp which people can pay at small increments. The cost of using the solar lamp is less than $1 a day hence making it affordable to over 500 million Africans.
Image credit: Google
50. Sleepout
Country: Mauritus
Founder: Johann Jensen
What it does: An accommodation marketplace that connects guests with host seeking to rent their apartments.
Why it is exciting: With Sleepout you could list any of your property for rent whether it is a hotel, private house, and old country home and even a tree house. African is growing rapidly and traditional hotels would prove insufficient to meet up with this growing demand, hence Sleepout model would prove a real winner in Africa.
Image credit: Sleepout.com
These are some of the many tech startups changing the tech scene in Africa. Which of them do you find exciting. If you know any startup that you feel should be on the list, please do let us know in your comments.
