Artificial intelligence-based startups in financial services, agriculture and education dominate the fourth cohort of Google‘s Africa Launchpad Accelerator program.
The U.S. tech giant’s African accelerator has already seen three classes graduate, and the latest cohort of 12 promising African startups has just begun the three-month program in Lagos, according to Google.
The chosen tech firms include three startups from Kenya, four from Nigeria, two from South Africa and one each from Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe, Pulse reports.
The 12 African tech startups will receive three months of mentorship and support from Google, three weeks all-expenses-paid training at Launchpad Accelerator Africa in Lagos or Nairobi, and access to Google engineers, resources, and mentors during and after the program.
Google claims to raise the profile of the startups it supports. Many go on to raise investment from other investors on the back of this program.
The 35 startups from the first three classes created 505 direct jobs and raised more than $28 million before, during and after participating in Google Launchpad.
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The tech giant will provide an equity-free investment at the end of the program, with each of the 12 participating startups receiving $10,000 from Google upon completion of the Launchpad Accelerator.
The four selected Nigerian startups include fintech firms Reach, Xend and Afara Partners, as well as cloud-based agritech platform TradeBuza.
From South Africa, BrandBook is a mobile app for storing receipts while Sortd is an all-in-one productivity suite for Gmail and GSuite, ITNewsAfrica reports.
Kenya has three startups in the cohort. Elewa is a toolkit for establishing scalable high-quality training programs. Tulaa is an online-to-offline marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa. WorkPay is a cloud-based mobile employee management and payment solution.
Ugandan startup Eversend is a multi-currency e-wallet while Zimbabwe’s Phenomenal Technologies offers low-cost field excursions for learners through virtual reality, Ventureburn reports.
OZE is a Ghanaian data insights company that helps businesses make data-driven financial decisions and achieve growth to improve their performance.
