Here are the 10 African startups pitching at the Y Combinator’s W21 batch demo day

Ten African startups will be pitching at virtual Y Combinator’s W21 batch demo day. The selected startups will receive US$125,000 in seed funding as well as further investment opportunities at a demo day

274 companies from 41 countries are represented within this virtual edition of the programme, with 50 per cent of them based outside the United States (US) – the most ever.

The ten African startups are:

• Blueloop (Flux)
• Dayra
• Djamo
• Flextock
• Kidato
• Prospa
• Mono
• NowPay
• Sendbox
• Vendease

Blueloop (Flux)

Blueloop is the company behind Flux, a mobile payments app that lets you send money, receive money, make and accept payments across Africa using cryptocurrencies. Later that year, the startup raised US$77,000 in pre-seed funding from Hustle Fund VC, Pioneer, Mozilla, and some angel investors.

Dayra

Founded in 2020 by Omar Ekram, the fintech startup aims to provide a range of financial services to unbanked gig-workers and micro-businesses in the region. Dayra recently secured the largest debt and equity Pre-Seed round in the region with a total of $3-million received.

Djamo

Founded by Hassan Bourgi and Regis Bamba in 2019, Djamo is a financial super app for consumers in Francophone Africa.

Flextock

Flextock is a tech-enabled fulfillment provider in the Middle East & Africa. For local merchants, they warehouse the stock and deliver orders directly to their customers through their network of last mile delivery partners. It was founded in September 2020 by by Mohamed Mossaad and Enas Siam 

Kidato

Kidato is a Kenyan based edutech startup founded by Kenyan serial entrepreneur Sam Gichuru in 2020. It is an online school for K12 education in Africa.

Prospa

Prospa says it is building a bank for entrepreneurs in Africa to help them manage everything finance-related. It was founded by Frederik Obasi and Chioma Ugo in 2019.

Mono

Founded by ex-Paystack employee and CEO Abdul Hassan and CTO Prakhar Singh, Mono helps digital businesses in Africa access their customers’ financial account for data and payments through a single API. Mono closed a $500,000 pre-seed investment from early-stage investors like Lateral Capital, Ventures Platform, Golden Palm Investments and Rally Cap in December 2020.

NowPay

NowPay is a Cairo-based financial wellness platform for employees in emerging markets. Founded in 2019, NowPay is led by Mostafa Ashour, Co-founder Ahmed Sabry, Gehan Fathi and Mahmoud ElHosseiny. Last year, NowPay raised $2.1 million during a seed investment round.

Sendbox

Sendbox provides its customers with an array of services including delivery, escrow payments and authentic reviews for those who use social media platforms for e-commerce. The startup founded by Emotu Balogun and Olusegun Afolahan, provides a means for its users to identify trustworthy merchants, securely pay for items and ship to domestic and international destinations.

It was one of the first startups to receive funding from Microtraction.

Vendease

Vendease procurement platform provides a transparent process for hotels and restaurants to get the best quality products at the best possible price. Vendease also helps businesses grow by financing their procurement.

Some of the alumni startups of the program include Flutterwave, Paystack,  Releaf,  CredPal,  54Gene, Kobo360