Last year at Google for Nigeria, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced the Launchpad Accelerator Africa program, which includes over $3 million in equity-free support to more than 60 African tech startups over three years including mentorship, working space and access to technology and startup experts from Google and our external communities all over the world.
Launchpad Accelerator Africa is based on Google’s global Launchpad Acceleratorprogram, tailored to the African market. Nine African startups have participated in Launchpad Accelerator, the global accelerator for growth-stage startups in Silicon Valley, to date. We are delighted to now bring Launchpad to Africa, to benefit African startups on their own continent and wish the first Launchpad Accelerator Africa class all the best for the program and the future.
In November 2017 we opened applications for the first class of Launchpad Accelerator Africa, and we’re proud to announce that the first class of Launchpad Accelerator Africa begins today. This inaugural class includes 12 startups from across Africa, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The startups for Class 1 are:
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Babymigo (Nigeria) - a trusted social community for expecting mothers and young parents.
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Flexpay (Kenya) - an automated and secured layaway e-commerce system.
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Kudi (Nigeria) - payment for Africa through messaging.
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OkadaBooks (Nigeria) - a social platform that allows users easily create, spread and sell their stories/books/documents in a matter of minutes.
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OMG Digital (Ghana) - a media platform which produces hyper-local, engaging and entertaining content that African millennials love to consume and share.
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Pezesha (Kenya) - a scalable Peer to Peer microlending marketplace which allows Kenyans to loan to Kenyans, via mobile money using big data and credit analytics.
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Piggybank.ng (Nigeria) - allows Africans put aside little amounts of money periodically till they reach a savings target.
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Riby (Nigeria) - a peer-to-peer banking platform for cooperatives and their members that allows them to save, borrow and invest, together.
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swiftVEE (South Africa) - a platform for connecting livestock agencies to a network of buyers and sellers.
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TangoTv (Tanzania) - a media streaming and video on demand service for African local content; films and shows.
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Teheca (Uganda) - helps families and individuals find the right health care providers/workers in Uganda.
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Thrive Agric (Nigeria) - crowdfunds investments for small holder farmers, and provide this to them in form of inputs, tech driven advisory and access to market.
Teheca, the startup in the class from Uganda is an alumni of the Up Accelerate acceleration program. Up Accelerate is an initiative of UNFPA implemented by Outbox, that supports young people addressing challenges in Sexual Reproductive Health using social businesses. It supports them with seed funding, mentorship, technical guidance and business training. Teheca is one of seven (7) startups that were supported in the first and second cycles of the initiative.
Google is committed to the Sub-Saharan Africa developer and startup ecosystem, and has hosted 13 Launchpad Build and Start events across Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa since April 2016, featuring 228 speakers and mentors, engaging 590 attendees from local startups in each country.
Google also supports developer communities across Sub-Saharan Africa, including Google Developer Groups and Women Techmakers, providing training and support for developers aligned with real-life job competency requirements. Community groups engage in activities like Study Jams: study groups facilitated by developers, for developers. Today there are over 120 active developer communities across 25 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of their activities, 61 of these groups hosted 81 Study Jams for mobile web and Google Cloud developers in 10 countries, reaching over 5,000 developers in the last year.
