Nine African startups were selected to participate in the second edition of the program Norrsken Impact Accelerator, which was created to find the world's most promising impact startups and help them boost their business model.
Founded by Niklas Adalberth, one of the founders of the Swedish unicorn fintech Klarna, in 2016, Norrsken aims to help digital entrepreneurs solve the world's biggest challenges. The digital entrepreneurship ecosystem comprises Norrsken House, a co-working space for over 350 impact entrepreneurs in Stockholm, as well as the Norrsken Founders Fund and Norrsken VC.
According to what had been revealed by the platform Disrupt Africa, in 2019 the Norrsken Foundation launched its first operations in Africa, namely in Kigali, Rwanda, which is currently the company's main base for investing in the entire Central African and Eastern region, not forgetting that last year it accepted 11 startups of Africa in the inaugural edition of the Norrsken Impact Accelerator.
For the 2022 edition, 20 startups from 15 countries were chosen, offering solutions ranging from mental health, poverty alleviation, sustainable agriculture, financial inclusion and green energy.
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Nine startups are headquartered in Africa, with the rest coming from countries such as Sweden, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). Among the African projects chosen, two are Nigerian, namely the digital primary health service Clafiya and clean tech startup SunFi, while the rest are the Mozambican digital transport platform Appload, the Ugandan loan service Emata, the tanzanian payment solution Umoja Labs, the Rwandan craft recruitment service Fixa, the Ghanaian platform BNPL Reason, the South African health network HealthDart and the Kenyan Savings and Investment Service Power Financial Wellness.
The selected startups were chosen through an open application process, evaluated against the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals and ranked based on the magnitude and depth of their potential impact. Only startups that can successfully demonstrate that impact is an integral part of their business model have been admitted to the program.
In addition to accepting the program itself, including an 8-week growth sprint at Norrsken House in Stockholm and mentoring from a roster of over 110 unicorn entrepreneurs, investors and founders, all startups will receive $125.000 in initial pre-funding investment. -seed or seeds from the Norrsken Foundation.
"This is a big day for Norrsken. Our accelerator brings together more than a hundred extraordinary individuals who channel their knowledge, experience and network to pave the way for impactful early-stage and near-stage technology startups. We only want to work with companies that are solving real, urgent, important problems – problems that matter. We believe that all of the companies in our 2022 cohort are doing just that, and we are excited to be part of their growth journeys from here!“, said Funda Sezgi, managing director and co-founder of Norrsken Impact Accelerator.
Since being accepted into the 2021 program, the 20 participating startups, drawn from over 2.300 applications worldwide, have raised over $24 million in seed or pre-seed funds from investors such as Ash Pournori, co-founder of Krys, Fredrik Jung-Abbou, Pär Norberg of Nordic Capital, Capital T, Globivest and Norrsken Foundation.
