23 Startups Eligible for Visa’s Debut Africa Fintech Accelerator Program

Visa has chosen 23 firms for its inaugural Africa Fintech Accelerator program, which aims to support African startups by providing knowledge, connections, technology, and investment capital.

In July, Disrupt Africa reported on Visa’s Africa Fintech Accelerator program, which followed the company’s pledge to spend $1 billion in Africa’s digital transformation and its long-term commitment to improving Africa’s economy and creating inclusive prosperity.

Through a three-month intense learning program focusing on business growth and mentoring, the accelerator will help entrepreneurs grow. Following the completion of the program, Visa will give additional support in the form of capital investment in chosen businesses, while also speeding their commercial debut through access to Visa technology and capabilities.

Anchor, which provides APIs, dashboards, and tools for developers to embed and build financial solutions, is one of five Nigerian companies in the cohort. Dojah, which provides a full Know Your Customer (KYC) and digital onboarding solution; Moni, which provides low-interest loans to mobile money agent networks; Orda Africa, a provider of African restaurant cloud operating systems; and Traction, which develops next-generation payment solutions and business tools.

OkHi, which allows banks, fintechs, and companies to collect and verify clients’ addresses; Duhqa, a B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods; and Workpay, an HR payroll service, and Power, which empowers employees to take charge of their financial health.

OZÉ, which provides digital recordkeeping tools with embedded finance products to medium and small businesses; The Blu Penguin, which provides an in-store Point of Sale (PoS) system; AgroCenta, which operates a mobile merchant platform for smallholder farmers; and Affinity Africa, which provides banking products to the underserved and unbanked, are also represented in Ghana.

Chari, a B2B e-commerce and retail business, PayTic, a back-office operations and payments risk control platform, and Weego, a mobility platform, are three of the selected firms from Morocco. Floatpays, an on-demand wage access platform; Franc, which lets users to invest in major cash and stock funds; and OnLife, an all-in-one money management wallet, are also present in South Africa.

Sympl (Egypt), which allows customers to shop and pay later with no interest; Eversend (Uganda), a payments platform offering cross-border payments, virtual cards, currency exchange, and crypto buying and selling; PremierCredit (Zambia), an online microlending and investment platform; and Konnect (Tunisia) round out the cohort.

“Africa has one of the most exciting and admired fintech ecosystems in the world, bringing outstanding entrepreneurial talent to a young digital-first population that is growing fast,” said Alfred F. Kelly Jr., executive chairman of Visa. “Visa has been increasing our investments in Africa for decades and strengthening partnerships throughout the continent to support the next wave of innovation and growth. Our new Fintech Accelerator will bring expertise, connections, and investment to Africa’s best fintech start-ups so they can grow at scale.”