TECH STARS (960)
Aware of the challenges faced by small-scale farmers, he co-founded Pula to provide insurance products to people who need them but have never bought any.
Thomas Njeru (photo) is a Kenyan entrepreneur and co-founder of insuretech Pula. He graduated from the University of Nairobi, in 2009, with a bachelor's of Actuarial science. In 2015, he got a chartered financial analyst degree from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University. In 2018, he graduated from Strathmore Business School with a Master of Commerce.
His insuretech, Pula, operates in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It handles insurance product design, risk placement, farmer and herder training, and claims assessment. It offers three main products, namely Yield Index Insurance (YII), Hybrid Index Insurance, and Indexed Livestock Insurance (IBLI).
Its yield index insurance covers all yield-related risks. Among other things, it insures the value of purchased inputs in the event of low yield. Its hybrid index insurance is a combination of weather index insurance (WII) and yield index insurance (YII), offering farmers comprehensive coverage by maximizing the benefits of both insurance products.
The third product, indexed livestock insurance, is an asset insurance program that covers farmers when pasture is inadequate, often due to drought or delayed rainfall. Since 2015, Pula's products have impacted more than 6.7 million smallholder farmers. Thomas Njeru, the man who made that possible, entered the insurance world, in 2009, as an actuary at UAP-Old Mutual Insurance Group. In 2011, he joined Aon Hewitt as a consulting actuary. Then, in 2012, Deloitte South Africa hired him for the same position. About two years later, he was promoted to the position of director of actuary and coinsurance advisory. In 2019, the New York Times named him one of the global agriculture visionaries.
Melchior Koba
The Innovation Village aims to create a new generation of entrepreneurs who solve industry and community challenges. In addition to the collaborative framework it provides for its members, it organizes events and programs to facilitate their development.
The Innovation Village is a springboard for entrepreneurs and innovators that strive to solve Africa’s most processing problems. Founded by C.K. Japheth, in 2015, it is a coworking space that offers business incubation and acceleration services to start-ups.
It aims to foster the emergence of a wave of businesses that not only have a measurable impact on the world but also significantly improve the lives of everyone on the planet. The incubator targets startups in the agritech, insurtech, energy, edtech, fintech, tourism, healthcare, supply chain, manufacturing, and media segments.
It implements several programs and initiatives, including the Uganda Innovation Week 2022, which brought together 1,000 participants, over 80 speakers, and more than 50 exhibitors. It also organizes the DataHack4Fi, an annual innovation competition that promotes evidence-based decision-making to improve the delivery of financial services to low-income people.
The incubator also organizes events to enable successful entrepreneurs to share their experiences. One such event is VILLAGE SOIREE, set to take place today, May 26.
To date, it has supported 2,000 entrepreneurs, including 40% women, in six segments. It also boasts a community of 140 start-ups, over $3 million raised, and 100 events hosted.
The startups it supported include Safepay, a digital payment solution for public transport users, UGIT Engineering and Consulting, a company offering consulting, engineering, and design services, and Infinity IcT Solutions, which aims to become a data center by providing quality information technology services.
Its partners for various activities include The Mastercard Foundation, Liquid Telecom, MTN, and UNCDF.
Melchior Koba
He is an expert in digitization, business strategy and development, and digital banking. With AgroSfer, he digitizes agriculture, providing appropriate solutions to the needs of cooperatives, agribusinesses, and governments.
Francis Dossou Sognon (photo) is a Beninese entrepreneur set on revolutionizing agriculture across Africa. In 2019, the industrial and systems engineering graduate founded AgroSfer for that purpose.
Through the agritech company, he designs and implements data-driven strategies to improve the agricultural value chain on the continent. He supports agricultural cooperatives, collects data in the field, and provides tailor-made support to small-scale farmers to help build sustainable supply chains for food industry players.
Currently, AgroSfer operates in Benin, France and Côte d’Ivoire. To help at least three million farmers easily sell their products to manufacturers by 2025, it developed a digital marketplace to connect farmers with international buyers. For the time being, it has reached some 20,000 farmers.
Francis Dossou Sognon is also one of the co-founders of Acumen Network, an African digitization company that aims to help businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations effectively address the challenges they face in transforming their activities.
His professional career began in 2006 at Valeo, an automotive supplier, where he was a lean engineer. He worked at Mastercard Advisors in the information services sales office in 2015 and as business development support between 2016 and 2017. In 2017, he joined Illicado, a forerunner in the French voucher market in France, as a digital program manager.
Melchior Koba
Concree offers virtual and in-person incubation programs to foster entrepreneurship in Africa.
Concree is a Senegal-based incubator, which designs and manages solutions and programs to help early-stage startups grow from ideation to scalable business models. It was founded, in 2014, by Babacar Birane, a project manager by training, and Abdoul Sy, its chief technology officer.
The incubator focuses on developing the creative potentials of its coachees, supporting determined entrepreneurs in their efforts to create innovative, sustainable, and impactful businesses. It is always in support of selected entrepreneurs from the ideation stage to the first sale.
It has developed several coaching solutions, including LezGo, LezGo Light, and Wekomkom. The latter is an open incubation platform designed to help startups transform their ideas into products ready to be taken to markets. It connects entrepreneurs to upskilling, financing, and business development opportunities.
LezGo allows entrepreneurship support institutions to attract entrepreneurs and work in perfect collaboration with their incubation team and entrepreneurs and also review and improve their coaching activity.
LezGo Light, on the other hand, fosters collaboration and empowers users with dynamic tools. It also allows users to measure the impact of their coaching with monitoring and evaluation tools.
Apart from its tech solutions, Concree also collaborates with partners on entrepreneurship support projects. One of those projects is the Falling Walls Lab (June 8, 2023), an event during which participants present their innovative ideas. In its eight years of existence, Concree has supported 250 entrepreneurs through its programs, 3,000 entrepreneurs through its digital solutions, and worked with 20 institutional clients. Among the start-ups supported by the company are Aywajieune, an online platform that facilitates the purchase of fish and seafood, and Tolbi, a Senegalese agricultural technology company.
Melchior Koba
The incubator and accelerator supports tech startups, providing resources and coaching to help startups grow.
Zixtech Hub is a business incubator and accelerator based in Cameroon. Officially established in 2017 by Paul Mbua, it aims to become a hub where people turn ideas into businesses. As such, it provides young people with the skills, information, training, network, and tools to create sustainable businesses.
It supports companies that develop greentech, cleantech, agritech, healthtech, logitech, fintech and edtech solutions. Its incubation program, called ZixtechCubation, focuses on “ideation and growth” and includes three months of “guided both self-paced and Expert-led sessions.”
Zixtech Hub has initiated several acceleration programs, including Agritech Accelerator and Greentech Accelerator. The former connects agritech startups with mentors and experts while the latter focuses on greentech startups.
In addition to these programs, the support agency has developed an innovative, hands-on entrepreneurship academy called Startup Academy to foster innovation and creativity. It also offers mentoring sessions -Mentorship Hour- with startups and entrepreneurs facing various challenges in the ecosystem.
In addition, Zixtech Hub offers consulting services to governments, non-governmental organizations, business support organizations, and companies with experienced professionals in their field. The incubator also offers web development services, ICT solutions, digital marketing, and artificial intelligence solutions.
For its activities, Zixtech partners with international and national agencies like the European Union, AfriLabs, International Trade Centre, Enrich in Africa, Digital Africa, and GIZ. It covers more than 17 countries. It also collaborated with some 60 clients on 45 projects, claiming a 100% success rate.
Melchior Koba
With its coworking spaces, incubation and mentoring programs, as well as training and consulting services, DoniLab supports tech innovation and entrepreneurship in Mali.
DoniLab is a Mali-based business incubator founded in 2015. It is led by Tidiane Ball, a medical professional and entrepreneur. The incubator helps startups turn their ideas into minimum-viable products. It focuses on business sectors with high innovation potential such as information and communication technologies, health, and social innovation.
Through its coworking space equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure, DoniLab offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to work in a comfortable space while benefiting from a range of services and high-speed Internet access. It also offers a digital fabrication lab -which serves as a learning space- and helps entrepreneurs, professionals, and established or yet-to-be-established companies get reliable information on their markets.
The incubator has initiated several programs, including Doni Green, an online climate change course for entrepreneurs, students, and professionals. The program aims to promote the development of the green economy through youth entrepreneurship in Mali.
DoniLab has supported other programs such as the Anwkathon Green Economy, a hackathon that aims to promote sustainable development by encouraging the youth to adopt green solutions. The incubator also supports Youth Connekt Mali, a program that aims to encourage youth entrepreneurship and involvement in development actions.
To reach entrepreneurs in rural areas, the incubator has created three additional hubs apart from its Bamako headquarter. On Saturday, May 20, at its Sikasso hub, it organized a training session on the production of hydroponic green fodder for entrepreneurs in the agriculture and livestock sector.
To date, DoniLab has incubated and accelerated 298 companies. It has also helped create 292 jobs -thanks to supported companies- and organized 35 events. The companies incubated by DoniLab have raised more than CFAF830 million ($1.3 million).
It is supported by several partners, including AfriLabs, the U.S. embassy in Mali, Afric'Innov, the World Bank, the International Organization of la Francophonie, and the French Development Agency (AFD).
Melchior Koba
He has managed businesses in over 25 countries. With over 20 years of experience in retail financing, he develops solutions to facilitate access to credit for SMBs and underserved individuals.
In the recently booming fintech ecosystem in Africa, Chidi Okpala (photo) is undoubtedly one of the entrepreneurs marking the ecosystem. He is the founder and CEO of Asante Financial Services Group, a Kenya-based fintech startup founded in 2018.
His startup offers credit solutions with a focus on advancing the independence and financial well-being of underserved SMBs and individuals in Africa. The neo-bank provides funds to small businesses to help them manage their daily operations. It offers financing to licensed mobile money agents and provides loans to finance its customers' insurance premiums, ensuring maximum convenience and protection. To date, it has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Rwanda and plans to expand to seven more countries by 2025.
Its founder, Chidi Okpala, studied finance at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology where he graduated with a B.sc. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Nigeria (UNN Nsuka) and a Sloan Master of Science in Management from the London Business School.
Since June 2022, he is a member of the international board of directors of Medair, an organization that helps vulnerable people in isolated and devastated communities survive crises and recover with dignity.
Before founding his company, the entrepreneur worked for major financial institutions. Among others, he was the managing director in charge of retail banking in 19 markets in Africa for the UBA Group between 2010 and 2012. Over the three following years, he was the president and CEO of Airtel Money, where he grew the mobile money business into one of the continent's largest retail financial service providers. From 2016 to 2018, he also worked for Atlas Mara Ltd as managing director of the fintech and digital segments.
In 2022, Asante Financial Services Group was awarded the Neobank Rising Star Award for East Africa at the 8th Africa Bank 4.0 Awards ceremony.
Melchior Koba
He is shaping the global energy landscape by investing in sustainable solutions and creating strategic partnerships. His company actively promotes green energy in Africa.
Samuel Alemayehu (photo), an Ethiopian entrepreneur and investor, is at the forefront of the combat against climate change and the promotion of sustainable development in Africa. He leads a dedicated team that invests in innovative projects focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Born in Ethiopia, he attended Stanford University where he earned a bachelor's in management science and engineering. In 2008, he co-founded and led -till 2013- 4Afri Technologies, a mobile service provider deployed in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Cameroon, DR Congo, Gabon, Senegal, Ghana, and Liberia. In 2005, he co-founded Corner Media Global LLC, a distributed social network focused on expatriate communities.
He is also the co-founder and chairman of Cambridge Industries, an engineering, design, procurement, and construction company focused on renewable energy projects throughout Africa. As a subsidiary of Cambridge Group of Companies, the company -founded in 2013- manages various renewable energy projects on the continent and has completed projects worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Cambridge Industries was for instance the first company to design, develop and build a large-scale waste-to-energy project in Africa. The project, called Reppie Waste-to-Energy, is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It currently processes more than 1,400 tons of waste daily.
As an investor, Samuel Alemayehu has backed several companies and sits on the board of several of them. These include East Africa Electric, the innovative communication and storytelling platform Pitch and Flow, VC Include, and NextBillion.ai, a company focused on artificial intelligence. His passion and actions have earned him recognition as one of the World Economic Forum's Young Leaders in 2018.
Melchior Koba
The incubator encourages technological entrepreneurship and provides young talents with the resources they need to turn ideas into businesses. Its programs and events position it as a major player in the Mauritanian digital transformation ecosystem.
In Mauritania, Hadina RIMTIC is one of the key players that promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the tech ecosystem. The incubator, based in Nouakchott, was founded, in 2014, by IT engineer Mariem Kane, IT expert and entrepreneur Dahaba Diagana, and senior consultant Zeinebou Abdeldjelil, who is currently its president.
It aims to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, boost digital adoption and improve the contribution of the digital economy to GDP. It also wants to facilitate the digital transformation of growth sectors and strengthen women’s entrepreneurship. It as well aims to contribute to the digitalization of growth sectors and to strengthen the participation of women in entrepreneurship.
To achieve its goals, Hadina RIMTIC offers coworking spaces to allow entrepreneurs to work in an environment that stimulates creativity and collaboration. It also offers mentoring and coaching programs, business development, and financing opportunities.
The incubator also develops innovative solutions for its partners, executes corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and strategies, and offers smart sourcing services.
It regularly organizes events, workshops, and conferences to trigger interest in IT disciplines, share good practices, and create networking opportunities. In 2014, it launched the MauriAppChallenge, the first app development contest in Mauritania. In 2022, it also launched the Agri-entrepreneurship Program in partnership with the FAO to support businesses and start-ups operating in the agricultural sector.
Hadina RIMTIC also established an agricultural innovation center in Rosso and organized a STEM Summer Camp to train Mauritanians in robotics, electronics, and programming. The best students from this camp will represent Mauritania at the FIRST Global Robotics competition.
To date, it has incubated 5 start-ups, pre-incubated 26 start-ups, supported 40 projects, and organized 4 competitions as well as 35 conferences and training. Among the start-ups supported are DoctoRIM, Neotic, Habidem, and Taci Secure. It is supported by several partners including USAID, the World Bank, the French Embassy in Mauritania, Total Energies, and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Mauritania, among others.
Melchior Koba
Impact Lab plays a key role in promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa. With a presence in 17 countries, it is among the largest technology hubs on the continent.
Founded in 2014 by Salma Kabbaj and Leyth Zniber, Impact Lab is a Morocco-based social innovation lab committed to accelerating the deployment of innovative solutions to address the continent's challenges.
It provides a dynamic platform for social entrepreneurs to develop innovative ideas and high-impact projects. It also assists in the operationalization of innovation governance and the framing of innovation strategy. The lab develops specific training programs adapted to the objectives of each company it supports and strengthens the digital skills of employees.
As an innovation hub, it also supports the framing and deployment of transformation projects following design thinking and lean principles. In addition, it connects companies, start-ups, and institutions to experiment collaborative approaches.
The lab has organized several acceleration programs including the Agritech Launchpad dedicated to Moroccan start-ups that have developed innovative solutions to address challenges in the agro-industrial value chain. It is also an implementing partner of the Investing in Innovation (I3) program in Francophone Africa.
From 2016 to date, Impact Lab has supported more than 250 startups, such as Kriterion, a company that uses artificial intelligence to provide actionable intelligence to digital companies in the heavy industry. It helped organize several events, such as the Fintech Challenge and the Mining Challenge. It has also deployed 25 innovation programs across the 17 countries it covers thanks to partners like Alvarium and Blackbelt in Morocco.
Melchior Koba
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He is a finance graduate with a passion for using technology to develop practical solutions. With FeexPay, he enables merchants to collect payments online.
Jean Hugues Houinsou (photo) is the founder and CEO of JH Trading Group, a UK-registered group. Through that group, in May 2023, he launched FeexPay, a mobile payment aggregator that allows merchants to collect mobile money and card payments online.
FeexPay has four notable features. The first, FeexLink, allows merchants to generate secure payment links and send them to buyers via mail or any other communication channel. FeexCorporate, the second feature, allows users to send multiple payments simultaneously and pay staff, suppliers, etc…
The third feature is FeexMarket, a checkout solution. It allows users to create their e-shops and automatize payments. The last feature is FeexPage, a feature that personalizes checkout pages to improve customer experience.
FeexPay is an intuitive platform that is easy to learn. The commissions it collects on transactions processed are also the lowest in the Beninese market. They range from 1.5-1.7% of mobile money payments to 4.5% for card payments.
The fintech startup also gives users the possibility to make customized integrations. When interviewed by We Are Tech Africa about FeexPay's goals, Jean Hugues Houinsou said that the startup wanted to become the leading payment aggregator in Africa. “[...] We have initiated a process to expand to other countries, in addition to Benin,” to improve continental financial inclusion he said.
Jean Hugues Houinsou holds a master's in banking and finance from the National School of Applied Economics and Management in Benin. He is certified by the University System of Maryland in the application of the Scrum methodology to agile project management and by Harvard University in the fundamentals of leadership. He also holds Google certifications in digital marketing, Adwords, and Analytics, among others.
Apart from FeexPay, his group founded La Vedette Media, a web marketing agency. From 2019 to 2020, the versatile entrepreneur worked as the project manager of Google Digital Skills for Africa. Currently, he is the co-leader of the Google Business Group in Cotonou.
Melchior Koba
CTIC Dakar has established itself as a driving force in the Senegalese entrepreneurial ecosystem. As an incubator and accelerator, it has provided critical support to the country's tech start-ups, helping transform their innovative ideas into successful businesses.
CTIC Dakar is a Senegalese incubator created in 2011. It is the result of a public-private partnership led by FICTIS, the network of ICT incubators operating in Senegal. It aims to foster the development of growth potential SMEs in West Africa.
It is placed under the administrative supervision of the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the technical supervision of the Ministry of ICT. Currently, it is headed by Isidore Mbodji, its Executive Director.
The innovation hub offers a full range of services and programs to support start-ups at each stage of their development. It has three main support programs. The first one, Buntutekki, is a 3- month pre-incubation program that supports budding entrepreneurs from the ideation phase of their project to the business plan and formalization.
The second, Incub'Action, is a tailored 2-year incubation program that aims to mature startups’ economic models, allowing startups to easily conquer markets. The last one, Adduna, is a six-month acceleration program that allows existing companies to develop, and structure operations to reach the next growth stage and attract investors.
In about seven years of operation, the incubator has supported over 176 companies and start-ups. They include M-Louma, which connects agriculture value-chain actors, People Input, an African web and mobile service provider, and the web services company Inaota. It has coached more than 2,400 project leaders and organized more than 1,200 working sessions.
In 2022, the incubator took part in BAM: Empowering African Accelerators, a program designed to enable accelerators and incubators to amplify their impact and support future entrepreneurs in their respective operating regions.
In addition to being an incubator and accelerator, CTIC Dakar is positioned as a real player in the Senegalese entrepreneurial ecosystem. It regularly organizes events (more than 150 already), workshops, and conferences to promote exchanges and collaborations in the start-up community.
Supported by Sonatel, World Bank Group, and Info Dev, among others, CTIC Dakar also plays an active role in promoting technological innovation in Senegal, by encouraging research and development. It also supports ICT initiatives.
Melchior Koba
With over 17 years of tech and consulting experience, he helps consumer goods manufacturers easily sell their products.
Onyekachi Izukanne (photo) is the CEO and co-founder of TradeDepot, a digital platform that connects small African retailers with global consumer goods producers.
His platform, founded in August 2016, offers several services. First, it offers real-time data-driven trade intelligence to get a “product in the right retail stores at the right time.”
It also handles inventory, shipping, returns, and customer service for suppliers through its distribution centers across Africa. In addition, it provides microcredit to retailers to enable them to purchase more products and grow their businesses.
“Our focus is distribution, which is a very feasible problem because to purchase whatever item we need, distribution is necessary in getting it from the maker to us. Whether it is a shirt, food, or digital item, there needs to be distribution,” Onyekachi Izukanne told Nairametrics in 2022.
With TradeDepot's B2B platform, retailers can order from wholesalers 24/7 without encountering out-of-stock issues. By 2020, TradeDepot already had more than 200 employees and about 40,000 micro retailers using its platform to source basic household products from manufacturers such as Unilever, Nestlé, Danone, and Kellogg's.
Before TradeDepot, Onyekachi Izukanne co-founded C2G Consulting, a consulting and B2B integration firm. He served the firm as a managing partner between 2004 and 2017. Since 2018, he is its non-executive director.
His professional career began in 2013, as a consultant at Mobilizr LLC, a company that connects brands with a large community of social media users who act as their brand ambassadors.
Melchior Koba
He is a successful entrepreneur and investor who owns an investment holding focused on African tech firms. One of his companies, CarePoint, has become a reference in the African health sector.
Sangu Delle (photo) is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, investor, and author. He is the founder and CEO of CarePoint, a state-of-the-art healthcare company, which owns over 65 healthcare facilities in Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana.
He earned a Master of Business Administration and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard. He also has a Master's in international human rights law from Oxford University, and holds a doctorate in economic anthropology and African studies from the University of Birmingham.
CarePoint was formerly known as Africa Health Holdings Ltd. It operates six brands, Seha Healthcare, Lily Hospitals, CarePoint, Meridian Health Group, Rabito Clinic, and My Care Mobile in its operating countries. With more than 1,500 patients treated, more than 10,000 patients reached through telemedicine and more than 5,000 surgeries and essential procedures performed, the company employs 1,993 people and is one of the leaders in the sector in Africa.
Sangu Delle is also the founder and executive chairman of Golden Palm Investments, a pan-African venture capital firm focused on supporting leading African entrepreneurs who are leveraging digital technologies to solve some of the major challenges facing the African continent.
He is also the co-founder and president of Cleanacwa, a nonprofit which works to bring clean water to Ghana's least developed areas. The Eisenhower Fellow is a member of YPO, a global community of leaders, and the director of mPharma, a healthtech company that improves access to medicines.
A TED Fellow and term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Sangu Delle was voted Young Person of the Year by Future Awards Africa in 2014. In 2015, he was named one of the 30 most promising African entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine. Some four years later, New African Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential Africans.
The 2021 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader is the co-author of "Making Futures: Young Entrepreneurs in a Dynamic Africa." He has also presented TED talks on mental health, gender equality, and African macro-finance.
Melchior Koba