Google has opened applications for the third cohort of its Launchpad Accelerator for Africa, a programme built to back promising start-ups using technology to solve African problems. The application process was said to take about 25 minutes.
The initiative is designed to give founders mentorship from Google engineers and other professionals, alongside access to the company’s technology infrastructure. Google has set aside $3 million (Sh300 million) for the full programme.
The second cohort had just wrapped up two weeks earlier in Lagos, Nigeria, after running from late August to November. Google said the class drew 300 applications from the 17 eligible countries, but only 11 businesses were selected.
The start-ups came from Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria. Kenya had two representatives, Uganda one, Egypt one, Ghana one, South Africa two and Nigeria four. The selected companies worked across agriculture, e-commerce, education, finance, insurance and energy.
Those 11 businesses received $110,000 in equity-free funding and were linked to 48 mentors from nine countries. Google said the programme was meant to help founders sharpen both their products and their operations as they scaled.
Nyakundi Report’s archive source also carried comments from several Class 2 founders on how the programme affected their companies.
What the founders said ¶
PayGo Energy, a Kenyan modern gas company, said the accelerator helped it strengthen software systems that had been struggling to support 300 households. The company said it now uses a more scalable architecture similar to what Google uses for Gmail, Maps and Search, and that work which once took two years was completed in two months.
PayGo Energy also said the programme improved internal planning through Google’s OKR system, making it easier for the team to set goals, assign responsibilities and measure progress.
Cloud 9xp, another Kenyan business, said the bootcamps in Johannesburg and Lagos helped the team better understand the pan-African travel market. The company said the exposure, networks and OKR training improved its processes and gave it infrastructure that could support growth from 10 users to millions.
EzyAgric, a Ugandan mobile and web app focused on digitising the agricultural value chain, said Launchpad helped align product release dates with business goals. The company said the programme reduced the gap between engineering and business development, and improved its ability to scale to as many as two million farmers signing up in a day.
Chalkboard Education, a Ghanaian content distribution platform, said it learned better management practices, clearer communication and more structured operations. The company said the support also exposed it to software ideas that could help it handle more content and users without breaking down.
Mintrics, an Egyptian social video analytics company, said Launchpad improved its internal processes and helped it redesign its platform. The firm said work on artificial intelligence and machine learning improved the accuracy of Mintrics Meter, while a Competitive Leaderboard feature was released to help brands and advertisers track rivals.
The programme remained open for applications for the next cohort at the time of publication.
