The Norrsken Impact Accelerator, which is aimed to uncover the world’s most promising impact entrepreneurs and help them expand, has picked nine African firms to participate in its second iteration.
Norrsken was founded in 2016 by Niklas Adalberth, a co-founder of Swedish financial unicorn Klarna. Norrsken House, a co-working facility in Stockholm with over 350 impact entrepreneurs, the Norrsken Founders Fund, and Norrsken VC are all part of its ecosystem.
It has chosen 20 businesses from 15 countries to participate in the 2022 edition, with ideas spanning from mental health to poverty reduction to sustainable agriculture, financial inclusion, and green energy.
Nine of the enterprises are headquartered in Africa, while the remainder are from Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom (UK). Two of them are Nigerian, namely digital primary healthcare service Clafiya and clean-tech startup SunFi, while the others are Mozambican digital transportation platform Appload, Ugandan lending service Emata, Tanzanian payment solution Umoja Labs, Rwandan artisan recruitment service Fixa, Ghanaian BNPL platform Motito, South African health network HealthDart, and Kenyan savings and investment service Power Financial Wellness.
All the participating firms were chosen through an open application process and were assessed against the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with the extent and depth of their potential effect being graded. Only organisations who can demonstrate that impact is a critical component of their business strategy have been accepted into the programme.
In addition to acceptance into the programme, which includes an 8-week growth sprint at Norrsken House in Stockholm and mentorship from a roster of over 110 entrepreneurs, investors, and unicorn founders, all startups will receive an upfront pre-seed or seed investment of US $125,000 from the Norrsken Foundation.
“This is a big day for Norrsken. Our accelerator brings together over one hundred extraordinary individuals who channel their knowledge, experience and network to pave the way for early-stage, up-and-coming impact tech startups. We only want to work with companies that are solving real, urgent and important problems – problems that matter. We believe that all of the companies in our 2022 cohort are doing exactly this, and we’re so excited to be part of their growth journeys from here!”, said Funda Sezgi, Norrsken Impact Accelerator managing director and co-founder.
The 20 participating companies have raised more than US $24 million in seed or pre-seed funding from investors such as Brilliant Minds co-founder Ash Pournori, Kry co-founder Fredrik Jung-Abbou, Pär Norberg of Nordic Capital, Capital T, Globivest, and Norrsken Foundation since being accepted into the 2021 programme, which was chosen from over 2,300 applications worldwide.
Norrsken has also announced the formation of Norrsken22, a new US $200 million tech growth fund that will invest in extraordinary entrepreneurs who are establishing Africa’s next digital giants.
