6 more African startups have been confirmed for the Y Combinator W22 batch.
Six more African startups have been confirmed as participants in the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator’s W22 batch, bringing the total to ten.
Between now and March, the W22 batch of the Y Combinator program, which has played a role in the early days of companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, and Dropbox, will take place.
Participants receive seed funding as well as further investment opportunities at a demo day. The S21 edition of the accelerator had 15 African participants, the most yet, and Disrupt Africa reported earlier this month on the first confirmed African participants in the W22 batch – Ethiopia’s beU Delivery, and Nigerian startups Identitypass, Moni and Topship.
With over 160 companies now confirmed to participate, a further six African names have been added to the list, bringing the total number of African names announced to ten. Four of them are Nigerian, including the developer-tooling startup Frain, the identity data platform Dojah, the payroll and bookkeeping service Eazipay, and the micropayments service Touch and Pay.
Tendo, a Ghanaian dropshipping platform, and Numida, a Ugandan lending startup, are the other two. More W22 participants are expected to be revealed in the coming months, both before and after demo day.
Continental royalty such as Flutterwave, Paystack, and Kobo360 are among the Y Combinator alumni (not to mention Cowrywise, MarketForce, Kudi, WaystoCap, WorkPay, Healthlane, Trella, 54gene, CredPal, NALA and Breadfast).
Disrupt Africa recently reported that the accelerator’s standard deal size had been raised to US$500,000. YC previously invested US$125,000 for 7% equity, but under its new standard deal, it will also invest an additional US$375,000 on an uncapped SAFE with “Most Favoured Nation” (MFN) terms.
The accelerator occupies an ambiguous position within the continent’s startup ecosystem, but entrepreneurs praise it for having a positive impact on their businesses.
