Visa selects 19 startups from 3rd Africa Fintech Accelerator
The third edition of Visa’s biennial Africa Fintech Accelerator, which gives businesses access to resources, industry connections, and mentorship to help them develop their creative solutions, has chosen 19 entrepreneurs from throughout the continent to participate.
The Africa Fintech Accelerator was started in 2023 in accordance with Visa’s commitment to invest $1 billion USD in financial inclusion in Africa by 2027. To far, it has accelerated 45 firms in two cohorts, with 15 partnerships already in operation.
Visa has already revealed the 19 businesses chosen for the third iteration of the three-month program, and four firms that participated in the first one last year have recently obtained strategic capital from the company.
The 19 businesses, who come from all over the continent, will have access to technology credits, mentorship, and demo day opportunities to network with possible investors. They will also have the chance to get strategic investment from Visa.
Credable, a digital banking platform that allows businesses and financial institutions in MEA to offer financial services; Melanin Kapital, a carbon neobank that offers carbon credits and green loans to African businesses; Umba, a digital microfinance bank; and Zendawa, which helps neighborhood pharmacies with online sales and integrated finance services, are the four Kenyan startups that were chosen.
Three are from South Africa: Ordev, which offers middleware solutions that integrate digital services for retail and hospitality businesses; Block Markets Africa, which uses asset tokenization to build open financial market infrastructure; and Sticitt, which streamlines school-related payments, boosting collections and cutting down on administrative work.
Three more are from Nigeria: NearPays, a full-service payment platform for businesses; Kredete, a digital lending marketplace; and Bumpa, which facilitates digital commerce for retail and direct-to-consumer companies.
The other members of the cohort are Fixa from Rwanda, Kacha from Ethiopia, Moneco from Algeria, WafR from Morocco, Jabu from Namibia, PaySika from Cameroon, and WeWire from Ghana. Egypt has two representatives: Enza, which assists banks in providing SMEs with mobile-led payment acceptance and financial services, and MoneyHash, which combines several payment APIs into a single merchant integration point.
