Startups from Nigeria, Kenya top Google Startups Accelerator Africa selection list

Google, one of the tech giants, has selected 20 startups from across Africa as members of the 5th cohort of its Google Startup Accelerator Africa.

The programme formerly known as Launchpad was established in 2018 and has since then worked with 47 startups from 17 African countries. This includes Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte D’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Bearing in mind that the coronavirus pandemic is still on the rampage, the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa Class 5 programme will be done remotely. 

This year, Google will host one combined class, with 20 startups instead of 12. The programme is also scheduled to run for the usual 3 months, starting June 29 until September 11, 2020, and each company will participate in a one-week ‘virtual boot camp’ every month. 

The company disclosed that each startup that partakes in the programme will have access to mentorship, funding, PR support, and other incentives.

In this fifth cohort, the selected pool of startups for the new class are from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. In addition, they cut across diverse industries like logistics, transportation, education, agriculture, e-commerce, media, health and professional services. 

What you need to know about the startups

The startups topping the Google Startups Accelerator Africa list in Kenya include AmiTruck, logistics startup; BuuPass, transport startup; Uzapoint, enterprise resource planning platform; Crediation, fintech startup; Zuka Data Science, edtech startup and llara Health, Software as a service health tech startup.

Eight startups hand-picked in Nigeria are Credpal, a fintech startup; Crop2Cash, an agritech startup; Curacel, a Claims and Fraud Detection Platform for African Insurers; Festival Coins, an event ticketing startup; Judy, a legal startup; Stears, a media startup; Send, a digital freight company and The Smarthub, a SaaS healthtech startup. 

The companies that made it to the Google Startups Accelerator Africa list in South Africa include Beam, media startup and Franc, focused on fintech. 

 Other companies selected are Adi+Bolga, a Ghanaian healthtech startup; Kaoun, a fintech startup in Tunisia; Thumeza, Zayride, logistics providers from Zimbabwe and Ethiopia respectively. 

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