Google for Businesses’ US $3 million Black Founders Fund Africa has provided equity-free investment to fifty African innovative startups.
The fund helps early-stage black-founded businesses on the continent, bridging the funding gap that exists for black company founders in Africa’s rapidly evolving technological environment. Aside
In addition to the award money, the 50 selected businesses will receive Google Ad Grants and Cloud credits, as well as help from Google’s seasoned specialists. Google will deliver the funds to the selected firms across Africa in collaboration with Co-Creation Centre (CcHub), a major innovation community hub with locations in Nigeria, Kenya, and Rwanda.
Twenty-seven of the funded startups are from Nigeria, including Babymigo (e-health), Bumpa (retail-tech), Chekkit (e-health), CredPal (fintech), Crop2Cash (agri-tech), Curacel (fintech), Emergency Response Africa (e-health), Formplus (data collection), GeroCare (e-health), Gradely (ed-tech), Gricd (energy), Hitch (ed-tech), ImaliPay (e-health).
Amitruck (logistics), Angaza Elimu (ed-tech), AquaRech (agri-tech), Finplus (fintech), MarketForce (retail-tech), Pezesha (fintech), Raise (fintech), WorkPay (HR) and WorkPay (HR) are eight Kenyan companies, whereas Akiba Digital (fintech), Khula! (agri-tech), Kudoti (waste management), Oyi ( (fintech).
Three companies are from Ghana (Grow for Me, agri-tech; Tendo, retail-tech; WayaMoney, fintech), and two are from Rwanda (Grow for Me, agri-tech; Tendo, retail-tech; WayaMoney, fintech) (AC Group, logistics; and Bongalo, travel). Senegal’s Paps logistics platform, Cameroonia’s Infiuss Health e-health company, Zambia’s Lupiya fintech, and Ethiopia’s Taskmoby home services platform round out the list.
“We are proud to have been selected for funding and support by Google’s Black Founders Fund. Finplus is building a new kind of credit and commerce infrastructure for emerging markets, which is incredibly ambitious work in largely uncharted territory. To succeed we must employ a creative mix of both old and new technologies in innovative ways,” said Finplus chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Kageni Wilson.
“A number of these enablers are Google technologies and beyond the funding, cloud and marketing resources we are receiving from Google, we look forward to collaborating closely with their talented creators to push the boundaries of what these technologies can do on the continent when applied in novel ways.”
“Our mission is to put more money in women’s hands and adopting more advanced technology will allow us to reach more women. We are super excited about this grant, as well as the mentorship and support that comes with it. We look forward to all the meaningful impact it will make for the women in our network,” said Ifeoma Uddoh, founder and CEO of Shecluded.
“At Shecluded, we are seeing firsthand the urgent need for women to easily access key financial growth services. We believe that an advanced technology platform will go a long way to improve our ability to reach and provide these important resources to more women across more regions/locations.”
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