As South Africa faces slow economic growth and high unemployment (especially among the youth), many people are left out of the formal financial system. Millions don’t have access to affordable credit or basic financial services.
Fintech startups can assist in offering low-cost solutions that traditional banks often do not provide.
To support this Visa has announced that applications are open for the fifth cohort (Cohort 5) of its Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator, a 12-week intensive program designed to help startups fast-track their growth and impact. Fintechs with a minimum viable product (MVP) or a market-ready solution based in South Africa are invited to apply before August 15.
Visa also announced 22 participating startups for the fourth cohort (Cohort 4) of its program, spanning 12 countries. These startups aim is to tackle challenges in Africa’s fintech sector and promote financial inclusion and digital growth. They provide solutions in Small and Medium Business (SMB) digitization, lending, cross-border payments, payroll, business-to-business (B2B) payments, AI-powered payments, social commerce, climate insurance, and neo-banking.
The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator offers Africa-focused startups mentorship, tailored training, networking, and access to funding and resources, helping them advance in the fintech sector. This initiative is part of Visa’s continued commitment to advancing Africa’s digital economy, and the company’s pledge of R17 billion by 2027 to transform the payments ecosystem.
Since its inception in 2023, the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program has accelerated 64 fintechs across three cohorts, with an estimated cumulative portfolio value of R19 billion. In the first three cohorts, participation has spanned 17 countries with operational footprint in 31. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of the startups included women on their leadership teams. Collectively, these fintechs have added more than R54 million in revenue during the course of the training, and alumni have subsequently raised more than R980 million following completion of the program.
Lineshree Moodley, country head of Visa South Africa, says: “At Visa, we see fintech as a powerful driver of inclusive economic growth across Africa. With digital innovation reshaping the financial landscape, we’re proud to welcome applications for the fifth cohort of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator—an initiative designed to champion visionary start-ups as they bring fresh solutions to market. We also congratulate the entrepreneurs selected for Cohort 4, whose diverse ideas are poised to make a meaningful impact on communities, businesses, and the broader digital economy.”
The virtual Accelerator program will conclude with an in-person Demo Day, where startups will have the opportunity to pitch their innovations to key ecosystem players, funding partners, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Startups shortlisted for Cohort 4 of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator are:
- Zazu (South Africa): Zazu is a neobank for African small and medium-sized businesses, providing digital business accounts, expense management, invoicing, and bookkeeping tools in one platform.
- BigDot.ai (Zimbabwe): BigDot is helping SMEs use less cash through digital transformation, seamless checkouts, and blockchain-powered financial inclusion.
- ChatCash (Zimbabwe): ChatCash enables African SMEs to sell and get paid through popular messaging apps using AI-powered, multilingual tools. The platform integrates payments, customer engagement, and business resources.
- Credify Africa (Uganda): Credify is bridging the trade finance gap for African importers by providing seamless access to capital, logistics, and cross-border payments.
- Flend (Egypt): Flend is a digital NBFI for SME finance, providing tech-enabled, data-driven solutions to close the financing gap for underserved businesses in North Africa.
- Hsabati (Morocco): Hsabati is a platform that helps businesses manage operations, enabling data collection and ecosystem scoring to facilitate financing through partner banks.
- IPT Africa (Mauritius): IPT Africa provides cross-border payments solutions, including payroll processing, real-time FX pricing, and same-day bulk payments.
- Lemonade Payments (Kenya): Lemonade’s white-label digital payments solution empowers businesses with secure, blockchain-powered wallets, without compromising user data.
- Maishapay (Democratic Republic of Congo): Maishapay is an all-in-one B2B financial platform offering payroll solutions, digital payments, and POS terminals to help streamline transactions.
- MNZL (Egypt): MNZL is expanding access to credit through a digital platform for asset-backed financing by tapping into consumers home and car equity.
- Motito (Ghana): Motito is an asset financing marketplace that provides alternative payment options for customers to purchase essential assets.
- Muda (Kenya): Muda is a digital asset exchange and OTC platform focused on cross-border payments and stablecoin liquidity solutions for African businesses and fintech’s.
- mystocks.africa (Botswana): Mystocks.africa simplifies investing across African stock markets by providing a unified platform for trading all African stocks.
- OKO Finance Ltd (Ivory Coast): OKO distributes automated climate insurance, allowing farms to boost their climate resilience and banks to de-risk their investment in agricultural projects.
- PressPayNg (Nigeria): PressPayNg is an education-focused fintech platform that provides banking, financing, savings, and insurance solutions to help parents, guardians, youths, and students fund education.
- Sevi (Kenya): Sevi streamlines B2B payments within non-digital value chains. This optimizes efficiency in credit, payments and reconciliation for the supplier, and access to stock and stock financing for small retailers.
- Shiga Digital Inc (Nigeria): Shiga Digital provides simplified access to decentralized financial solutions for the African market with a purpose-built Defi account.
- ShopOkoa (Kenya): ShopOkoa provides AI-driven credit and payment solutions to small- and micro-enterprises in Africa. It operates as a membership-based system combining daily savings, revenue-based financing, and automated cashflow tracking.
- Startbutton (Nigeria): Startbutton is a merchant of record helping businesses expand across Africa by paying and receiving local currency payments from their customers in a tax efficient and compliant manner, and without the need to setup local offices.
- Twiva (Kenya): Twiva is a social commerce platform where businesses market and resell their products and services through social media influencers.
- Vittas (Nigeria): Vittas empowers healthcare providers with access to tailored financing, digital tools, and payment solutions, enabling them to improve patient care.
- Woliz (Morocco): Woliz is a fintech ecosystem transforming nano-stores into digital hubs with loyalty rewards, payments, and AI-driven operations.