Cleva and Miden, two Nigerian fintech startups, have been accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator’s W24 batch in Silicon Valley.
Y Combinator’s W24 batch, which helped launch businesses like Coinbase, Dropbox, and Airbnb among others, began in January and has so far selected 137 startups to be participants.
Of those, two are African fintechs, one from Nigeria and the other from elsewhere. Established in 2023, Cleva aims to “democratize access to USD banking for emerging markets” by enabling users to receive payments from investors, clients, and employers worldwide into their digital Cleva account.
In January, the startup revealed that it had raised US $1.5 million in a pre-seed round of funding, including Y Combinator. In addition to The Raba Partnership, Byld Ventures, FirstCheck Africa, and several angel investors, 1984 Ventures led the round.
Miden is the second startup that was chosen. Using its API, Miden, a company founded in 2022, enables companies to offer a variety of financial products to their clients in an easy-to-use manner.
Since its W22 batch, which included 24 African startups, Y Combinator has cooled off on the continent. Since then, there has been a sharp decline in the number of African startups participating in Y Combinator; there were only seven in S22, three in W23, and three in S23.
Flutterwave, Paystack, and Kobo360 are just a few of the notable alumni of the accelerator. Other notable companies include Cowrywise, MarketForce, Kudi, WaystoCap, WorkPay, Healthlane, Trella, 54gene, CredPal, NALA, and Breadfast. Although it has a hazy place in Africa’s startup ecosystem, entrepreneurs applaud it for the benefits it provides to their companies.
The accelerator raised its standard deal size to US $500,000 in 2022, according to media reports; this is the amount that Cleva and Miden have now gained access to. Up until then, Y Combinator had invested US $125,000 for 7% equity; however, as part of its new standard deal, it will now contribute an additional US $375,000 on an uncapped SAFE with terms that are “most favoured nation” (MFN).
