The winner of the Latitude59 competition’s African final, which has ten startups chosen, will travel to Tallinn, Estonia to pitch at the main event for a prize pool of EUR1 million (US $1.1 million).
More than 900 startup representatives and almost 600 investors were among the more than 3,500 attendees of the 12th edition of Latitude59, Estonia’s premier startup and tech event, which took place in Tallinn in May.
Media outlets announced last month that Latitude59 was looking for early-stage companies from all over Africa to compete for a pitch at the event’s upcoming competition, which will be held at the following year. For the past two years, the Latitude59 pitch competition has had a EUR1 million prize fund.
The top 10 applications have been chosen from a total of 382 applications from 37 African nations. The African winner will be selected on November 28 at an event in Kenya where they will pitch.
Grekkon is expanding its moisture sensors for smallholder farmers; NoMa is a tech platform that digitizes school transportation; Eco Nasi turns waste pineapple pulp into premium vegan leather; and Paycloud is developing a neobank to assist MSMEs in Africa with payment aggregation, payment receipts, and credit access.
Roadrims, a dependable, cost-effective, and efficient logistics company; Twiva, a social commerce platform; VunaPay, which offers farmers immediate payments; and Zerobionic, which is creating a robotic arm that resembles a human to assist students with hearing impairments, are the other Kenyan businesses highlighted.
Also chosen are Tanzania’s Afya Mama, which offers women answers to their questions about reproductive health and maternal care through web apps and SMS, and Nigeria’s AcemyX, an LMS that helps students study for tests with customized learning resources for exams.
