Baobab Network Invests $50,000 into 4 Early Stage Startup
Kenyan-based accelerator, Baobab Network, has just revealed its latest investment in early-stage tech startups across the continent. The accelerator revealed that its latest cohort had four investees, which received Fifty thousand US dollars ($50,000)in funding each.
The Baobab Network has functioned as an accelerator for startups since 2019. Increasing its investment standard, to four ventures, it accepted its last cohort during the early part of March 2022. This event increases its impacted startups to 29 across 11 countries.
The investment beneficiaries include;
- Lemon: This startup assists business to possess industrial tools easily.
- Local Knowledge: A tech enabled travel startup, that provides travellers with digital support to navigate Africa and it treasures.
Both startups are South African based.
- Oval interactive: A Nigerian Marketing platform thst is technology supported.
- Shemach: Ethiopian marketplace that provides access ease for small orders, attached to a payment platform so users can pay for inventory.
The beneficiaries participated in a 3 months growth and acceleration program which was concluded by June, it saw all participants receive funding of US$50,000 each and growth support.
According to Christine Namara, one of The Baobab Network programme lead, “We spent our first few years in the market trying to test our model and ensure that we are able to deliver real value to African founders and put in the prerequisite processes required to scale it.”
It was further disclosed that “Starting earlier in 2022, we launched our first cohort fully with the understanding that we are able to repeat the process of delivering value at scale for African founders and we are very proud of the quality of startups that came out of that. We made it part of the process to close with a demo day, and we have been quite pleased with the traction our founders have gotten from the last one we had. Our companies have gone on to raise more than US$50 million in follow-on funding since we first launched our accelerator in 2019, so the model is definitely working.”
Applications for The Baobab Network 2023 first cohort are open now.