Visa Launches Its First African Innovation Bootcamp

Financial giant, Visa in partnership with Nest Africa, a global accelerator and early-stage tech investor, has opened its first innovation boot camp in Africa.

Visa and Nest had called for startups in fintech to send their applications last year.  At the close of submission for applications in February, they received 122 applications from 12 countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa among others. And after screening, 10 fintech startups were selected for a 4-day programme and rounds off with a demo day on March 27th, 2017 at Mettā in Nairobi,



Ten participants were selected from a pool of 122 applicants from 12 countries including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria, Belgium, Switzerland, UK, France and the US, who pitched their fin-tech solutions to an expert panel for a spot at Visa’s first innovation boot camp in Africa.

The 10 startups selected were: Okhi — a mobile-based imaging and location solution which aims to facilitate verification processes for financial institutions; Eat Out — a payment-based rewards solution for restaurants; Kwanji — a FX platform for African SMEs; Overview Technologies — Serves as both a personal finance management app as well as a payments solution; Lakt — a personal financial management app featuring a financial literacy aspect targeting millennials; SokoWatch — Uses feature-phone technology to enable product fulfilment between informal traders and FMCG distributors.

Others are: Ajala — a tool that uses speech processing technology to translate native languages which can be used within financial institutions; Data Integrated — a mobile POS solution for SMEs; Bamba POS— a cloud-based POS and an inventory management system for SMEs and Lipisha — a value-added payment aggregator for businesses through the use of mobile technology.

According to Visa’s country manager for East Africa, Sunny Walia: “The finalists will get the opportunity to gain knowledge and insights from experts at Visa, as well as gain access to Visa API’s and tools, and Nest’s resources to scale their start-up through Africa and beyond.”