Google investing in African entrepreneurship

In case you missed it, Google for Startups has recently launched its 6th cohort where 15 of the continents top startups will go through its 3 month accelerator program. This intake consists of startups from 7 countries across the African continent including, Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tunisia.

The current focus is on companies which leverage machine learning and AI, which makes sense considering the huge growth potential of this field within tech. Although there is no financial support on the program, the startups are able draw on the expertise of 20+ Google teams such as Android, Cloud, Machine Learning and Web.

They’ll also receive technical training on design, people, product and growth marketing as well as support on high-level company and product strategy. All of this is offered without them having to give away any equity. You can find out more about the program here.

Beyond crypto

There is so much hype in the crypto world at the moment. There are literally new crypto currencies launching every day. With this meteoric growth taking place in an unregulated environment, African Tech Story has a rather bearish view on the future appreciation of this asset class.

VALR, a leading South African crypto exchange, perhaps also shares some of this sentiment as it has recently launched a non-crypto product called VALR Pay. Leveraging its 150K strong user base VALR Pay enables peer-to-peer transfer of South African Rands for free. A VALR customer can seamlessly send another VALR customer ZAR with the click of a button. This could be the beginnings of another disruptor to the South African banking industry.

In the News 🚀

🇪🇬 Egyptian trucking marketplace, Trella, has raised $42 million in a Series A combined debt and equity round.

🇰🇪 Kenyan agritech startup, Apollo Agriculture, secured $1m debt funding from ABC Fund.

🇿🇦 South Africa edtech startup, HyperionDev, which helps people learn to code has raised $3.5m in a Series A funding round. Most of the funds where raised via crowd funding platform crowdcube.

🇳🇬 Nigerian proptech startup, Seso Global, has raised a $600K seed round led by Kepple Africa Ventures.