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Ghanaian Startup First In Africa To Join U.S. Accelerator Program

Ghanaian Startup First In Africa To Join U.S. Accelerator Program

From Ghanaweb.

Ghanaian company Dropifi beat the odds against African startups getting U.S. seed money by becoming the first African company to join the 500 Startups Accelerator Program.

Dropify’s product is a smart contact widget used as an alternative to “contact us” forms on websites. The product went global, selling to more than 5,000 businesses, according to a report in Ghanaweb.

Dropifi was founded by Effah Mensah, David Osei and Kabil Nabong, 2011 graduates of the  Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Accra.

When its founders were in Rio in March accepting their Kauffman Foundation Award at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, they pitched the product to Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups.

The 500 Startups Accelerator experiments with early-stage startup formulas for explosive growth with up to $250,000 in funding, according to its website.

“Dropifi is the first African investment for 500 Startups,” McClure said in the report. “Very few seed investors in Silicon Valley will put money into markets as early as Africa, but we think talent exists in every corner of the globe. Dropifi has a killer team and a promising product with global reach. The fact that they hail from Ghana makes it even cooler.”

Read more at Ghanaweb.