Ethiopian and Nigerian Startups join Y Combinator’s W22 batch

Ethiopia’s beU Delivery and Nigeria’s IdentityPass are among the 40 startups confirmed as participants in the W22 batch of the renowned Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator.

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.

At a demo day, participants receive US$125,000 in seed funding as well as additional investment opportunities. The accelerator’s S21 edition had 15 African participants, the most ever, and with 40 companies confirmed so far for W22, two African companies have already been named. More information will be revealed in the coming months, both before and after demo day.

So far, two startups have been named: beU Delivery, an Ethiopian on-demand food delivery service, and Identitypass, a Nigerian digital compliance and security company. In November, Disrupt Africa reported that the latter had raised US$360,000 in pre-seed funding to help it acquire more customers, develop its product further, and expand its team.

Y Combinator, the world’s most well-known accelerator, is increasingly selecting African tech startups to participate in its program. Its alumni list includes names like Flutterwave, Paystack, and Kobo360 (not to mention Cowrywise, MarketForce, Kudi, WaystoCap, WorkPay, Healthlane, Trella, 54gene, CredPal, NALA and Breadfast).

The accelerator occupies an ambiguous position within the continent’s startup ecosystem, but entrepreneurs praise it for having a positive impact on their businesses.