9 African Startups Selected for Y Combinator Summer 21 batch
Nine African startups have been selected to take part in the Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator S21 batch accelerator, receiving $125,000 each in seed funding as well as further investment opportunities at a demo day in September.
Of the nine selected startups, Nigeria and Egypt lead the way with three each. Two of the startups are from Morocco and one from South Africa.
Nigeria’s Mecho Autotech, which connects car users with mechanics and smart part vendors; Suplias, a B2B marketplace for mom and pop stores and Lemonade Finance, a multi-currency payments solution are 3 of the selected startups from Africa.
From Egypt, Amenli, a licensed online insurance brokerage; Odiggo, a car parts marketplace and ShipBlu, a last mile e-commerce delivery and fulfillment company.
Morocco’s Chari, an e-Commerce and Fintech app for traditional retailers and Freterium, a collaborative SaaS platform that connects organisations, people and technologies in the logistics value chain. And finally, South Africa’s Floatpays, an on-demand wage access platform, completes the list.
Ismael Belkhayat, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Chari speaking expressed joy and adding that the startup will benefit from participating in the program.
“It’s an honour for us to participate in the S21 batch of Y Combinator. With my co-founder, we will belong to the very closed circle of YC Alumni, allowing us to benefit from a global network of brilliantly successful startups. This will create a lot of value for our startup,” said Ismael Belkhayat, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Chari.
In March, 10 African startups had the opportunity to pitch at Y Combinator’s Winter ‘21 batch demo day, pitching to an audience of investors, press, alumni, and other interested parties virtually.
Y-Combinator has been termed the most prominent startup accelerator in the world by Harvard Business School, as they have taken deliberate and innovative steps to help entrepreneurs get off the ground.