The 12 African Startups in YCombinator’s Latest Batch: The Who, What and How Much.

YCombinator is one of the best-known names in the global venture capitals scene, with its accelerator program also being one of the most sought after among startups globally. Since its inception in 2005, many companies have gone through the training and pitching program including household names like Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox and Coinbase.

In Africa, companies like Paystack and Flutterwave are standout success stories from the program. This year, 12 African startups made it to YCombinator’s 30th training batch, finishing with online pitches at the virtual demo day held on March 16. Here’s an overview of the African startups in the batch, what they’ve been up to and what their prospects are:

Avion UAV (Ethiopia)

Although Avion is most commonly referenced in the context of delivering medial supplies to underserved communities, their vision is actually broader – to facilitate all kinds of deliveries to hard-to-reach communities in developing countries using their custom drones which can take 5kg payloads up to 150 kilometers.

Bamboo (Nigeria)

Launched in 2019, Bamboo aims to democratize the process of international investment by facilitating access to global capital markets for Africans, starting with Nigeria. Customers can access the investment options available via the app and website. With a minimum investment amount of $20, the barrier of entry is much lower and accessible for people across various age-groups and wealth categories.

Co-founded by Yanmo Omorogbe and Richmond Bassey, both of whom are new founders, the startup had previously received investment from the Future Africa Fund, although the exact sum remains undisclosed.

Crowdforce (Nigeria)

Founded by Oluwatomi Ayorinde and Damilola Ayorinde, the description of this company by Ycombinator itself is that “CrowdForce allows any local merchant in Africa to become a bank branch within minutes” and as tall an order as that seems to be, they actually do it via their app that allows registered agents to receive, disburse and perform transactions such as paying for utilities, on behalf of others.

In addition, they also leverage blockchain tech to give governments, businesses and NGOs access to temp workers who are able to gather data or perform other tasks quickly and cost-efficiently. Beginning with a seed round in September 2016 led by Ventures Platform, the company has had 6 funding rounds in total, according to Crunchbase.

Eze (Nigeria)

Eze Wholesale is an e-commerce platform co-founded in 2018 by Joshua Nzewi and David Iya to match used phone wholesalers with customers who intend to resell. The model is based on an escrow system where the buyer pays the funds to Eze which then authorizes delivery and pays the seller after the buyer confirms receipt.

Joshua had previously co-founded The Releaf group, a startup working to deliver raw materials to food factories in Africa. David also worked at Releaf as a web developer and then for other companies before they started Eze. So far, there have been no funding announcements.

Healthlane (Cameroon)

Healthlane is headquartered in Cameroon but has operations in Lagos and San Francisco, USA. Its goal is to provide access to timely and high-quality medical services by allowing customers to register for custom plans which cover everything from virtual care and remote consultation to house visits, prescriptions, and drug delivery. Their app also helps customers to consolidate and retain control of their health data. The founders, Alain Nteff and Agbor Ashu have raised $150,000 in a seed round in March, and are keen on expanding rapidly, from all indications.

NUMI (Nigeria)

Although they haven’t launched fully yet, the cofounders of NUMI; Agree Ahmed and Harrison Telyan, are keen on disrupting the retail import scene in East Africa. NUMI allows retailers to contact and place orders with manufacturers in the US, thus taking advantage of high quality, vetted products and lower logistics costs. They also have a grocery and food delivery service that’s currently functional.

Both founders have rich backgrounds founding and working at tech startups n the United States, and that experience will definitely play a key role in the evolution of this company. There hasn’t been any funding announcement yet, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem as the company is being bootstrapped effectively, judging from their LinkedIn post about shipping their app with just one part-time engineer.

SEND (Nigeria)

SEND bills itself as the service to “manage the entire process of shipping cargo via air and ocean”, taking off the issues of documentation, clearing with customs, transportation, and warehousing from the hands of businesspeople. Since its founding in 2017 by Larry Oti who has previously founded and worked as CEO of NextSpeel, a TV streaming service hosting African content, the company has been able to raise undisclosed sums from Ingressive Capital and The Ventures Platform.

The company is focused on tech-enabled streamlining of the freight process, using its app to provide instant quotes, process payments and allow customers to track, manage and receive notifications on their consignments in real time.

Swipe (Nigeria)

Swipe was founded by Damilola Jegede, formerly CEO of Nairabox, a mobile app development agency in Lagos. Although yet to commence full operations, the startup will provide individuals and small businesses with microcredit facilities. The website allows interested persons to sign up to the waitlist pending when disbursements begin. There haven’t been any funding announcements apart from the YCombinator seed, which might be part of why things have kicked off fully yet.

Tambua Health (Kenya)

Founded by Kenyans Daniel Gathigai and Lewis Wanjohi, Tambua Health is at the forefront of Medtech on the continent and even globally, pioneering the use of AI to detect lung disease in a precise, non-invasive and radiation-free manner. They intend to achieve this through a wearable device that “listens” to a patient’s lung function and interprets the sounds to form an image similar to but much more advanced than what one would get with an X-ray scan.

Although the startup lists Google Developers Launchpad and MIT, they are yet to announce a funding round.

Termii (Ethiopia)

Customer service is growing in importance as more and more companies are trying to use it to stand out in the market and improve their customer conversion and retention rates. That’s where Termii comes in, by facilitating communication with customers via personalized email, SMS, voice and instant messages. With advanced customization and automation features, businesses can carry on conversations with an unlimited number of customers easily and affordably.

The founders, Gbolade Emmanuel and Kevin Okoli, have experience building startups and have so far been able to raise a $30,000 seed fund from Future Hub, $245k from Aidi Ventures and an unspecified sum from Microtraction, apart from YCombinator.

Workpay (Kenya)

Originally named Tozzaplus when it was founded in 2017, WorkPay is aiming to be the one-stop-shop for companies when it comes to employee management. Its features cover the whole gamut from time and attendance tracking, human resource management, and payroll processing as well as actual disbursement of salaries.

With the announcement that they currently cater to 250 companies with about 20,000+ employees, it’s clear that the founder Paul Kimani is bringing his experience from working with several startups to bear in a move to rapidly expand and onboard even more businesses. The company is currently fundraising, according to Paul on LinkedIn.

Yassir (Algeria)

Based in Algiers and originally billed as an Uber-esque transport app allowing people to book vehicles for local trips, Yassir now offers food delivery services as well, among other areas it’s expanding to. Most notably, they’re offering a new option directed at corporate bodies, to streamline the management of employee trips.

The team has raised funds from multiple angel investors, most notable among them being VC4Africa.