In recent years, hundreds of inspiring and innovative startups, Technology-Driven has emerged in Africa, status quo across the African continent. There are many technology startups across our continent, the Disrupt Africa team has shared the 12 African startups to take into account in 2019.
Angola is represented by Appy Health. See the list in full:
Shezlong
The Egyptian startup Shezlong fills the interruption and impact boxes with its mission to address the stigma in North Africa around mental health problems. The company operates an online mental health platform that allows patients to connect to licensed therapists through video on their smartphone or through a web page. Although it existed for a few years, Shezlong had very strong funding in 2018, collecting about 350.000 USD; I do not accept the program 500 Startups accelerator; and selected to participate in the Annual Africa Investor Summit. The startup is expected to start operating fully in 2019.
Elves
The virtual assistant application from Egypt, saw activity accelerate in the last 18 months, the Elves app takes advantage of human intelligence to improve machine learning and thus builds Artificial Intelligence; with the chat-based platform, allowing users to chat with a “super human assistant” to do anything, anywhere in the world, for free. The startup raised about $ 2 million in initial funding by the end of 2017, giving it a great boost to start working in 2018, which it did, expanding its activity to the U.S. Elves opened an office in Los Angeles with an initial team of six people, which is focused exclusively on conquering the US market.
Halan
O Transport is an important point of friction in many African cities, and there are startups scattered across the continent trying to deal with travel logistics in their local markets. One of them that stood out is the Halan of Egypt. Founded in 2017, Halan is a logistics application for motorcycles and tuk tuks, which has already facilitated more than three million trips in various provinces in Egypt and Sudan. The startup secured a “multi-million dollar” round of financing in 2018, from companies like Battery Road Digital Holdings from Singapore and Algebra Ventures of Egypt, in order to continue expanding to other markets.Nala
The first choice in East Africa is Nala of Tanzania, a simplified mobile money application that allows users to make transactions faster, smarter and safer without an Internet connection.
Starting life as a parallel project of the Stanford University and moving to field research and operations in Tanzania at 2017, last year saw the progress of Nala accelerate rapidly, received funding from the DFS Lab; won the Ecobank Fintech Challenge; took home the African Apps of Disruptive Innovation Award; and was named winner of the Seedstars Tanzania in December.
Taimba
The agro-technological space in Africa is growing, with the number of startups operating in the market with an estimated growth of 110% in the last two years and more than 19 million invested in the sector in the same period, according to the report Agrinnovating for Africa.
One of the emerging quality agro-technological ventures on the continent is the Taimba, from Kenya, which operates a cashless platform based on mobile devices between companies connecting retail farmers with the aim of improving the supply chain, as well as regulating the price of agricultural products. Launched in mid-2017, the startup has already caught people's attention, and was named one of the three winners of the award Food + City Challenge, offered by SXSW; and won the first Disrupt Africa Live Pitch Competition.
UTU
Kenya's artificial intelligence startup UTU, attracting market (and investor) attention in 2018, and major breakthroughs are expected for the year of 2019. UTU, which is the company behind Maramoja's socially-driven taxi and transportation application, has developed a trust-optimized algorithm that uses proprietary innovations in AI and distributed accounting technology.
Startup increased initial funding on 2018, first raised an undisclosed amount of accelerator funding Zeroth, headquartered in Hong Kong in April; followed by 250.000 USD of the company Ventures, based in Bulgaria, after participating in its Starfleet Incubator for startups of Blockchain. UTU closed the year with the announcement that it added the incubator and venture capital company DEEPCORE, based in Tokyo, to its list of investors.
FinChatBot
This was an interesting year for startup FinChatBot South Africa. Founded in 2016, FinChatBot develops chatbots to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers through artificial intelligence (AI) conversations.
Although the initial plan was to expand to several markets at once, with resellers on the ground in Morocco and Kenya, the company this year decided to focus more on its domestic market in South Africa - and had a strong year as a result. The startup ended 2018 with a bang, announcing that it had raised about $ 563.000 in funding from the local venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners and Compass Capital, based in Mauritius, to continue its rapid growth and expand its line of customers.
Appy Health
A Angolan startup Appy Saude is transforming access to health care in the country, through its application of health care. Launched at 2017, Appy Saude allows users to access information such as services offered, covered medical specialties, insurance accepted, as well as the contact details of most of 2.000 listed medical facilities located throughout Angola.
Startup was focused on launching new features throughout 2018, with users now able to find, search and book medical appointments, as well as locate and reserve medical products for collection. It also partnered with the country's largest mobile operator, Unitel, to allow the 12 millions of users of the operator to access Appy Health for free.
Vizibiliti Insight
The South African startup Vizibiliti Insight has seen some important actions in 2018, and enthusiasm is expected to continue in 2019. The startup uses artificial intelligence to help the commercial property sector pre-select the tenants and predict the chances of them going into debt.
Vizibiliti Insight was chosen to participate in the event Viva Tech held in Paris in May and won, the overall winner of the challenge Transforming the customer experience through the Digital Challenge, winning the cash prize and an invitation to the Verizon in New York to collaborate with the company.
CowryWise
CowryWise's Nigerian financial technology startup was released on 2017, and has attracted people's attention ever since, both within Africa and in Silicon Valley.
CowryWise operates an automated insurance service that helps users save money and enjoy high returns from risk-free investments in Nigeria at zero rates. So far, it has processed more than 1,5 million USD in savings to its customers.
CowTribe
A CowTribe of Ghana has existed for a few years, but things have increased to startup in 2018 and we hope to see more of it in 2019.
Launched at 2016, Cowtribe obtains and aggregates genuine and affordable animal vaccines from large suppliers and works through a network of qualified agents to deliver them to farmers. Vaccines can be ordered via USSD, text and telephone, and by Community officials. We have had the pleasure of interacting with the CowTribe team during the Seedstars Africa Summit 2018.
KudiGO
KudiGO provides an integrated retail mech- anism, payments, accounting and analytics for retail, providing a complete solution for companies to receive payments, track inventories and build solid financial models based on past trends.
After a public experimental year, the startup was officially released on 2018 and started running. Not only is KudiGO already expanding to more African markets, but in November the startup said it is almost raising 300.000 USD funding to facilitate expansion, while securing important partnerships.
