Visa, a global leader in digital payments, has announced the 22 innovative startups selected for the fourth cohort of its Africa Fintech Accelerator Program. This initiative is part of Visa’s broader commitment to advancing financial inclusion and digital transformation across the continent, underpinned by its $1 billion pledge to Africa’s digital economy by 2027.
Operating in over 200 countries and territories and processing more than 215 billion transactions annually, Visa continues to leverage its global reach to empower early-stage fintechs in Africa through this 12-week accelerator. The program offers participating startups access to mentorship, technical training, funding opportunities, and strategic partnerships.
Accelerator Impact Since 2023
Launched in 2023, the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator has supported 64 startups across its first three cohorts. These companies span 17 countries and operate in 31 markets, collectively generating over $3 million in new revenue during the program and raising more than $55 million in follow-on funding. Notably, 62% of these startups feature women in leadership roles, reflecting Visa’s commitment to inclusive innovation.
Focus Areas and Geographic Reach
The fourth cohort features startups tackling challenges in SMB digitization, cross-border payments, lending, payroll, B2B transactions, AI-driven commerce, social commerce, climate insurance, and neo-banking. The selected companies represent 12 African countries, including:
- Kenya (5 startups)
- Nigeria (4)
- Egypt, Morocco, Zimbabwe (2 each)
- Ghana, Uganda, Mauritius, DRC, Botswana, Ivory Coast, South Africa (1 each)
Meet the 22 Startups in Cohort 4
- 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.
- 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.
Applications Open for Cohort 5
Visa has also opened applications for the fifth cohort, inviting African fintechs with a minimum viable product (MVP) or market-ready solution to apply by August 15.
A Visa spokesperson commented:
Visa is committed to fostering innovation and promoting access and inclusion within Africa’s financial ecosystem. As digital transformation accelerates across the continent, we are pleased to invite applications for Cohort 5 of the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator, in alignment with our mission to support emerging start-ups in advancing their innovative solutions.
The program will culminate in an in-person Demo Day, where participating startups will pitch their solutions to a curated audience of investors, ecosystem leaders, and potential partners.
