2021 was an important year for both venture capitalists and African digital startups. Reopening companies and returning to everyday life meant that people continued to practice routines they had developed during lockdowns. As a result of this shift in customer preferences, Africa had one of the world’s most dynamic technological industries.
As African tech continues to rise, it’s no surprise. In addition, the market is primed for a technological boom since the proportion of Africa’s young population is steadily increasing.
Selection of some tech startups in Nigeria fast-growing firms to watch out for in 2022 was generated from last year’s investment rounds.
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Kippa
Kennedy Ekezie, Duke Ekezie, and Jephthah Uche returned to the drawing board after their last startup failed to uncover a business-worthy challenge in Nigeria. Afterward, the trio decided to embark on a market tour to learn more about the challenges faced by Nigeria’s microbusiness owners. They discovered a severe issue they could fix after their research journey — bookkeeping. This issue was addressed in February 2021 with the launch of Kippa, a simple-to-use financial management app for small-business owners. After just a few months of growth, Kippa attracted thousands of users and raised $3.2 million in pre-seed capital in 2021. The question of how much more it will increase in 2022 seems logical.
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Releaf
Releaf, an agritech company founded in 2017 by Ikenna Nzewi and Uzoma Ayogu, aims to industrialize oil palm processing in Africa and increase production. The Kraken machine, developed by a mission-driven agritech business, was designed to speed up palm nut processing and reduce waste. Releaf also supports environmentally-friendly farming practices.
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Safeboda
The two-wheel ride-hailing platform of this Ugandan firm was created in 2018 before launching a nifty app in 2019. Uganda and Nigeria now serve more than 1 million users with transportation, parcel delivery, food and grocery shopping, payments, savings, and other financial services. Approximately 25,000 drivers are working for the organization, and they’ve delivered over 40 million packages in the US and the UK.
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TymeBank
Using a hybrid approach of digital banking and physical service centers, this tech startups in Nigeria is accelerating financial inclusion. Pick n Pay and Boxer locations around the country have kiosks where customers can sign up for the service (more than 80%).
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Twiga foods
Using technology to develop food supply chains and retail distribution networks across Africa, Twiga Foods has been doing so since 2014. This tech startups in Nigeria uses a mobile, cashless, B2B platform to link farmers and vendors. Nevertheless, it has been challenging to maintain the purity of the products acquired from Twiga’s smallholder farmers.
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Wave
When it raised $200 million in Series a funding last year, this mobile money provider located in the United States and Senegal made headlines. The wave became the first unicorn in Francophone Africa with a valuation of $1.7 billion after this fundraising round.
In 2014, the two co-founders founded the company due to their dissatisfaction with the difficulties and high costs of sending money to Africa from North America. This tech startups in nigeria was founded in 2018 by the co-founders after selling Sendwave to WorldRemit in 2017. The two-year-old business claims to be Senegal’s leading mobile money player and more than half of the country’s adult customers.
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Chooya
In the wake of prior tech startups in nigeria failures, Igwe Uguru founded Chooya, an e-commerce search engine that has since turned into Africa’s version of TikTok for e-commerce. Allowing customers to recommend and even be compensated for doing so is one of the unique features of Chooya’s platform.
When Chooya won the Entrepreneurship World Cup with a cash prize of $950,000, the market erupted. Since then, there has been impressive growth, with thousands of companies joining the platform. Founded in Aba, Nigeria, the Aba-based firm plans to expand to other African cities in 2022, starting with Nigeria.
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Edukoya
Former Google Nigeria CEO Honey Ogundeyi started Edukoya in May 2021 after being fired. Edukoya includes many valuable functions geared specifically toward Nigerian secondary school students. A data-driven question bank with step-by-step solutions, a customized performance tracking system, and 24/7 test preparation and homework tutoring are just some of the features available. Within a few months of beta testing, 96% of students who used Edukoya performed better on their exams.
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Minly
Creators throughout the Middle East and North Africa can use Mainly, an Egypt-based platform, to build genuine, personal relationships with their followers. The venue raised a seed round of $3.6 million last year.
From artists and musicians to social media stars and professional athletes like Egyptian footballer Mahmoud Trezeguet (who plays for Premier League club Aston Villa) Mainly has a devoted following of more than 50,000 users since its launch in 2020.
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Payday
To “create PayPal for Africa,” Payday raised a pre-seed capital of $1 million in October 2021. It was the first Rwandan firm to be accepted into Techstars Toronto Accelerator Program in the same month.
Favour Ori, a Rwandan fintech, launched the service in 2021, and it’s helping Africans transfer and receive money around the world. Payday had more than 5,000 users in its first three weeks, most of whom were referred by friends and family—and handled $1.4 million in transactions.
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TalentQL’s AltSchool
Many people in Africa are excited about learning digital skills, but there aren’t many places to understand them. That’s why in October of 2021, TalentQL opened AltSchool. AltSchool is an tech startups in Nigeria that will begin offering classes in April 2022 and is geared toward people who want to learn the basics of software engineering in preparation for a career in the field.
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Stitch
Since its $4 million seed round in February 2021, Stitch has secured a $2 million seed extension to speed up development, launch its solution and enlarge its Nigerian workforce.
With the help of Stitch’s data solution, app developers can connect their apps to their users’ bank accounts, allowing them to share their transaction history and balances, validate their identities, and make payments directly from their apps. Amounts reaching millions of dollars in fees have been processed through Stitch since its introduction, with Chipper Cash, Paystack, Franc, Sanlam, Yoco, and Flexclub as some of its regular customers.
