12 African tech startups have been chosen for the first cohort of the FAST Startup Accelerator, organized by Microsoft in partnership with Flapmax and designed to strengthen and scale Africa’s digital ecosystem. The program is 12-weeks and its starts next week.
The Fast Program brings together tech startups from 6 differents countries across Africa and serves 9 industries, chosen from more than 800 applications from 25 countries.
FAST applicants had to be based in Africa, ready to scale or expand within the continent, and have an established product-market fit while addressing one or more Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Interestingly, those selected startups are based in Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana. Here are selected Nigeria startups; DayDone - an e-commerce platform that focuses on digitalizing Africa's Agriculture Market. Capsa technology - an online platform to sell and buy invoice for businesses in Nigeria. Pade HCM - an automated HR platform for all African businesess and Legitcar which is a company that builds Africa's biggest vehicle data services.
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Kenya's are Silqu - a company that deal with shape of prop-tech, Snark health - an e-health startup, K-12 Ed-tech - an educational app in Kenya and Taimba which is a data-driven food supply chain.
Other chosen startups are VAIS - an Egyptian Agriculture Startup, Tumaini La Maisha - a Tanzania e-health startup, Wala Digital Health - a Ghanaian digital health platform and Kacyber technologies which is an Ugandan Mobility Company.
All those selected startups will participate in a broad range of activities including training, cloud and Al integration, business development, fundraising and community building events designed to help them scale rapidly and sustainably.
The Flapmax is useful in this program by letting it engineering team to provide new tech tools and services to the startup founders. Participants will also benefit from up to US$250,000 in Microsoft Azure cloud credits, as well as access to Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, including access to OpenAI APIs.
According to Geraid Maithya - a Startup leader at Africa Microsoft Transformation Office, he said, Microsoft believes that African startups are well-placed to become a cornerstone of the African digital economy, with relevant solutions to local societal challenges. Participation in the FAST startup accelerator programme will help these entrepreneurs capture available funding opportunities and plan for growth and future market expansion.