This archive report was first published on 13 September 2019.
On September 13, 2019, Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa kicked off its 4th cohort in Lagos, Nigeria, with 12 startups selected from six countries across Africa.
The selected startups aim to address pressing issues such as access to financial services, education, and agriculture. According to Fola Olatunji-David, head of startup success and services at Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa, 'We continue to be impressed by the quality of startups that apply to the Launchpad Accelerator Africa programme. Class 4 is no exception and we expect them to build on the successes of the previous three classes.'
Since its inception in late 2017, the programme has helped 35 startups with working space, access to mentors from Silicon Valley, and global travel and PR support throughout the 3-month programme.
The 12 selected startups include:
- Afara Partners (Nigeria): Offers platforms that provide services to the financially underserved/excluded.
- BrandBook (South Africa): A mobile app that incentivizes users to take a picture of their receipts, allowing it to harvest consumer purchase behavior across all channels.
- Elewa (Kenya): A toolkit for establishing scalable high-quality training programs within existing education- or professional institutions.
- Eversend (Uganda): A multi-currency e-wallet that allows users to exchange, spend, and send money at the best possible rates.
- OZE (Ghana): Brings African small businesses into the digital era, equipping their owners to make data-driven decisions to improve their performance and access capital.
- Phenomenal Technologies (Zimbabwe): Offers low-cost field excursions for learners through virtual reality.
- REACH (Nigeria): Recognizes, categorizes, and interprets transaction data from SMS and other sources, making this data available as individual financial and market insights.
- Sortd (South Africa): Aims to re-invent email with the world's first All-in-One productivity suite for Gmail and GSuite.
- TradeBuza (Nigeria): A cloud-based web and mobile application that digitizes contract farming and trade.
- Tulaa (Kenya): An online-to-offline marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa.
- XEND (Nigeria): Allows users to make and receive payments, offline or online.
- WorkPay (Kenya): A cloud-based employee management and payment solution using the power of mobile and biometrics.
