Mohamed Ali launched a food tech to reduce the prevalence of obesity and promote healthy food and dietary habits. Initially, his startup was operating in Egypt but with the funds he raised recently, the entrepreneur intends to expand operations into the MENA region.
Mohamed Ali (photo) is an Egyptian entrepreneur and founder of 3attar.com, a foodtech promoting healthy shopping. Founded in 2018, the startup offers food and dietary items, delivery services, and dietary counseling via its website, and mobile apps.
It was launched to improve the population’s health and reduce obesity prevalence, which has been rising in Egypt since 2017. Its ambition is to become the choice destination for athletes, fitness professionals, sick people, and even individuals who need quality and healthy food items adapted to their individual needs and lifestyle.
“We aim to become the dominant one-stop-shop for the whole health community in Egypt and expand into Mena regions; including chronic diseases and obesity by providing a holistic healthy lifestyle app,” the founder explains.
The latter spent his whole professional career in the e-commerce industry. In 2010, some months after securing a BSc in Accounting, Mohamed Ali joined Edfa3ly, a platform that allows users to buy goods from the U.S. and get them delivered to Egypt. He launched 3attar.com after leaving Edfa3ly.
In January 2022, he secured seed investment from AUC Angels, UI Investment & individual Angel Investors to expand the startup’s client base and upgrade its infrastructure for “higher-order volume and revenues.”
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In just seven years, Karim Beguir has transformed InstaDeep into an international AI reference. With the support of renowned investors and partners, he wants to enter new markets and sectors.
Karim Beguir (photo) is a Tunisian entrepreneur and Google Developer Expert in Machine Learning. With his high school friend Zohra Slim, he founded InstaDeep, an artificial intelligence startup that develops smart solutions to facilitate decision-making.
Within seven years, the startup founded in 2014 has gone intercontinental with offices in Paris, Tunis, Lagos, Dubai, London, Cape Town, and the USA recently. To upgrade its infrastructure and attract new talents, it raised US$100 million in a Series B round led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and CBIB. Participating investors included Google, Deutsche Bahn, and BioNTech.
For Karim Beguir, InstaDeep aimed to show that Tunisians can create cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies and conquer the African AI market. The co-founder is a science graduate. In 2003, he graduated from the French academic institution École Polytechnique with an Engineering diploma in applied mathematics and economy. In 2003, he graduated from New York University with an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Finance. With InstaDepp, he bagged several recognitions, was invited to international AI conferences, and collaborated with well-known firms. In 2017, InstaDeep was named one of the 20 Intriguing Global Startups to Watch by PCMag. The same year, it signed a partnership with Intel’s AI Builders and became an NVIDIA inception member.
About two years later, the startup published a joint research paper with Google’s DeppMind. In 2020, Karim Beguir announced a strategic collaboration with biotechnology company BioNTech and the creation of an AI innovation lab for the development of Novel Immunotherapies.
For two years, 2020 and 2021, InstaDeep was in CBInsights’ AI100 ranking, which showcases the world's most innovative AI companies. Last year, it became an NVIDIA Elite Service Delivery Partner.
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With over ten years of professional experience in the accounting sector, Babatunde Akin-Moses knows quite well the challenges faced by SMEs in their search for bank loans. Sycamore was launched to address some of those challenges.
Babatunde Akin-Moses (photo) is a Nigerian entrepreneur and co-founder of risk assessment startup Sycamore.ng.
Co-founded in 2019 with Onyinye Okonji and Mayowa Adeosin, the startup allows access to quick and collateral-free personal loans via its web and mobile platform available on PlayStore and AppStore. Through the web and mobile app, users can also lend to friends and families and automatically collect their dues at specified amortization dates.
Sycamore was launched to allow SMEs access to credit since they are usually unable to borrow from banks due to stringent conditions.
“...If you are in other countries, once you have a job, you can easily get a mortgage. But here in Nigeria, even if you are working, you need to be working for an upstream oil and gas firm or basically earning a lot of money before you can access a significant credit facility without having to present a landed property as collateral. You can see how that’s a major problem in a country where there are 100 million poor people,” explains co-founder and CEO Babatunde Akin-Moses.
As the CEO of Sycamore.ng, Babatunde Akin-Moses completed a seed-funding round whose amount was not disclosed. With the proceeds, the startup will build awareness in the Nigerian market where it is the only startup in the peer-to-peer lending segment. It will also invest in financial education, boost its human resources and expand to other African countries.
The co-founder holds an MBA from the Lagos Business School. His professional career started in 2010 with a business analyst position at Shell Nigeria. One year later, he joined KPMG as a tax analyst. In 2014, he was hired by PwC as a tax consultant and then as a Tax academy deputy. After five years with PwC, he was recruited by Pezesha as a finance and strategy manager. He left four months later to co-found Sycamore. He is also a member of the board of Profiliant Development Resources, a B2B sales, and marketing consultancy firm.
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Over the past ten years, François de Wet has sharpened his expertise through various professional experiences. With his online Wamly, he extended his reach to a wider range of business leaders who are intent on surrounding themselves with qualified staff.
François de Wet (photo) is a South African registered Industrial and organizational (I/O) psychologist. In 2018, he founded Wamly, the startup which developed an eponymous one-way interview software to ease recruitment processes.
With Wamly, firms can organize many interviews at the same time without mobilizing personnel. All they have to do is to create interview questions and send them to multiple applicants who will record a video of themselves answering the interview questions. That video is then sent to the interview panel, which will review it whenever they want.
According to François de Wet, “companies run because of people. People are the most valuable piece of the puzzle in any business.” So, “it should make sense that we place a high value on the process that we are using to find and retain these people,” he adds.
Wamly is the result of years of experience accumulated in human resources consulting by its founder. As a trained industrial and organizational psychologist, he knows quite well how to make firms more efficient.
In 2012, he graduated from North-West University, Potchefstroom, with a Bachelor of Commerce in Industrial and organizational psychology. Months before his graduation, he “completed vacation work as a vocational consultant at EXXARO HQ, a human resources consultancy firm in Pretoria.
He later joined another human resource consultancy firm, Top Talent Solutions, where he spent over five years in various positions.
In 2018, he left Top Talent Solutions to create the talent intelligence platformTalent Insights and Wamly. The one-way interview platform is now used by large firms to save time.
The next stage for Wamly is to enter additional African markets and ultimately export the solution out of continental borders. For that purpose, in January 2022, the startup raised a series B financing of an undisclosed amount from Knife Capital.
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SeamlesHR is positively impacting Nigerian firms’ performance since its creation in 2018. It boosts their efficiency by streamlining their human resources management process.
Emmanuel Okeleji (photo) is a Nigerian investment banker, medical doctor, and serial entrepreneur. Through SeamlessHR, the startup he co-founded in 2018 with Deji Lana, he helps firms streamline their human resources and payroll management processes.
With its eponymous cloud platform, SeamlessHR allows firms to track applications, onboard employees, track performances and attendance, manage payroll, leave and skill development. In short, the cloud platform saves firms precious time. For instance, the firms can administer recruitment tests and carry out interviews remotely. So, there is no need for applicants and recruiters to be physically present for tests.
The core modules of the platform include Tracking System (ATS), Employee Onboarding, Payroll, Leave Management, Performance Management, Talent Management, Succession & Workforce Planning, Time & Attendance Management, and Learning & Development.
As a trained medical doctor, Mr. Emmanuel graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University, Osun State, Nigeria, in 2011. Three years into his medical studies, in 2007, he co-funded Waressence, a software development firm. Six years later, in 2013, he also co-founded Insidify.com, a Nigeran job aggregator.
Apart from his entrepreneurship career, Emmanuel Okeleji also has an extensive professional career. In 2011, he worked in the Investment Banking Division and Securities Division of UK investment banker Goldman Sachs. The following year, he joined the staff of St.Nicholas Hospital, Lagos, as a resident physician.
With his entrepreneurship experience, Emmanuel Okeleji has gained credibility nationwide. Last year, he was invited to the fifth annual lecture of the Kings University, Osun State, to speak on entrepreneurship, innovation, and employment.
His current plan is to continue to improve human resources management and SeamlessHR clients’ experience by adding new features to the cloud platform. For that purpose, in January 2022, the startup raised US$10 million in a Series A round led by TLcom Capital. Participating firms were Capria Ventures, Lateral Frontier Ventures, Enza Capital, and Ingressive Capital.
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With an extensive professional career in several countries, he is certain that financial literacy is key to helping populations avoid debts. With Alvin Technologies, he is planning to do just that in Africa.
Winston Reid (photo) is a Kenyan entrepreneur who founded fintech startup Alvin Technologies in 2021. With its smart money management app, his startup helps users manage their income and savings. It helps them develop personalized budgeting plans, eliminate unnecessary expenditures, and monitor all the money outflows to avoid going into debt.
Through Alvin Technologies, he also provides banks and fintechs with “powerful API features to help them drive better customer engagement and money habits via their own apps.”
The Diplomacy and Global Politics graduate (B.A. from the University of Miami in 2014) founded Alvin Technologies to improve financial literacy in Africa and give Africans tools to “balance their daily spending with their savings goals.”
In January 2022, Alvin secured a US$740,000 pre-seed fund in a round led by Nigerian firm Ingressive Capital. With the secured funds, Winston Reid plans to hire more staff and boost Alvin Technologies’ positioning in Nigeria, in the second half of 2022.
“We’re excited to have such mission-aligned partners and strategic angels onboard the Alvin journey to help us build an even more intuitive and powerful personal finance app for all of Africa faster and more efficiently. This capital will enable us to hire key personnel quickly and scale faster as we transition from the private beta stage of the Alvin App v1: Labrador to the first public version of Alvin later in the quarter,” Winston said.
The techpreneur has over ten years of professional experience, in the finance sector mostly. In 2011, he joined Vector Marketing as a field sales advisor. Months later, he entered the communication industry as an English communication consultant for Shan Herald News Agency before notable positions in the agritech and edtech sectors in the U.S., Senegal, Nigeria, Thailand, and Kenya.
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With his over seven years of entrepreneurship experience, Aminu Ibrahim Bakori successfully entered the fintech segment by offering solutions to a crucial problem faced by businesses: card issuance. His startup developed an API that allows businesses and individuals to issue payment cards within days instead of the usual weeks or months waiting times that are the standards with banks.
In January 2021, Aminu Ibrahim Bakori (photo, right) and Kabir Shittu (photo, left) founded fintech startup Sudo Africa in Nigeria. Barely 18 months after its launch, in March 2022, the startup came under the spotlight by raising US$3.7 million in pre-seed funding. During the funding round, participating investors included notable names like Global Founders Capital Picus Capital, LoftyInc Capital, Rallycap Ventures, Kepple Africa, Berrywood Capital, ZedCrest, and Suya Ventures.
With the proceeds of that round, Sudo Africa plans to consolidate and develop its operations. The startup offers an API enabling the quick issuance of virtual and physical payment cards in Nigeria. It was founded to reduce the always long-waiting of firms and businesses that want to issue payment cards for their staff or clients.
“At some point, we wanted to issue cards and worked with one of the local banks in Nigeria. (...) They got to print up to 1,000 cards, but it took a lot of time and none of them functioned because the bank wasn’t able to provide any APIs for us to either manage the cards or even control the usage of those cards. That was the first time we came around, thinking about how to issue cards,” explains Sudo Africa’s co-founder and CEO Aminu Bakori.
The young entrepreneur holds a BSc in Statistics from Ahmadu Bello University (2015). He presents himself as “a passionate computer science student, programmer, and developer” who loves “ developing web applications and windows html5 apps, (...) Microsoft technologies and teaching others how to use technology for good use.”
In 2013, while still at university, he founded Friendstie, a social network for tech enthusiasts. Some four years later, he founded Payant.ng, a startup offering SMBs and freelancers the means to issue invoices, send payment reminders, and collect payment directly into their bank accounts wherever they are.
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In his about one decade of entrepreneurship experience, Tesh Mbaabu has implemented several projects in Kenya. With his numerous national and international recognitions, he has won the trust of investors ready to support the East and West African expansion of his B2B platform.
Tesh Mbaabu (photo) is a Kenyan entrepreneur and co-founder of MarketForce, a B2B platform that facilitates the retail distribution of consumer goods and digital financial services in Africa. In 2020, the platform he co-founded with Mesongo Sebuti was improved with the integration of RejaReja, which allows users to make orders, pay, accept payments, and access online loans.
About two years later, in February 2022, MarketForce raised US$40 million to enter new East and West African markets in addition to Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Kenya.
Its co-founder and CEO is a serial entrepreneur. He quicked off his professional career in 2011, four years before his BSc in computer science from the University of Nairobi (2015). That year, he became the creative director of Tesh Technologies Ltd, a graphic design and printing firm, while attending university. Two years later, he co-founded Mesozi Group, an integrated business and technology solutions provider. In 2016, Tesh Mbaabu co-founded Cloud9xp.com, an online recreation marketplace, and booking platform. About one year after the creation of MarketForce, he joined traveltech startup HotelOnlline as a board advisor.
His digital entrepreneurship experience also earned him prestigious recognitions. In 2018, he was a mentor at iHub Nairobi's Traction Camp, a “regional acceleration program aimed at nurturing startups in East Africa.” Three years later, he became an entrepreneurial growth mentor for accelerator JASIRI. Since April 2022, he has been teaching Entrepreneurship Without Borders (MS&E 272) at the University of Stanford, California. On April 21, he received the Fintech Investment Excellence Award during the Africa Fintech Summit in Washington DC.
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In just two years, serial entrepreneur Jesse Ghansah transformed Float into a promising fintech startup now trusted by several investors.
In January 2022, Ghanaian fintech Float raised US$17 million, a comparatively high amount raised by an African startup for its expansion. During the funding round, the startup co-founded in 2020, by Jesse Ghansah (photo, right) and Barima Effah (photo, left) seduced notable investors like Tiger Global, JAM Fund, Cauris, Kinfolk, Soma Capital, Ingressive Capital, and Magic Fund. Several angel investors also contributed. With the proceed, the startup plans to enter the South African and Kenyan markets.
Through Float, Jesse Ghansah helps small and medium businesses manage and monitor their cashflows in real time, pay supplier debts, and access loans for critical business expenses.
“Businesses that serve other businesses have to wait typically for 30-90 days for their payments to come in. This is like a traditional payment cycle where you have to offer credit sales to your customers to stay competitive. that’s why you send an invoice, and the customer will pay you back within that time frame,” he indicates.
According to Techcrunch -quoting a UN research report-, “85% of African SMBs have zero access to financing, and each day, African SMBs have billions locked up in receivables due to long payment cycles.” They, therefore, face cash flow problems that prevent them from paying for important expenses and delivering orders on time.
Float is created to address such problems, Ghansah explains. The loans granted through Float help address the liquidity problems that could be caused by late client payments. Firms also have no worries about paying salaries when their cash flow is tight. They can seamlessly repay the received loans when all the clients pay their invoices.
Jesse Ghansah graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in 2014, with a BSc in Biochemistry, Biotechnology, and Molecular Medicine. The same year, he quicked off his entrepreneurial career by co-founding the e-commerce platform Swipe Commerce and Zita Cakery. In 2015, he founded OMG Digital, the media company that owns OMGVoice and Bitnode. He also created Hivegig, the first Ghanaian online freelance marketplace that connects individuals and companies with freelance workers.
To ensure the success of Float, from 2019 to 2020, he upgraded his machine learning and artificial intelligence skill at the Bloom Institute of Technology, also known as BloomTech.
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Jonh Kamara created his platform to save millions of Africans from his painful experience. The platform aimed at helping reduce misdiagnosis cases in Africa earned him the confidence of several investors, who have committed funds for his expansion phase.
Tech veteran John Kamara (photo) is the founder of AfyaRekod, a healthtech combining artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to store users’ health information. With 20 years of professional experience in various fields like gaming, e-commerce, and telecommunications, the Kenyan entrepreneur is now committing his expertise and energy to guarantee better healthcare for patients across Africa.
In fact, he created AfyaRekod in 2020, following the demise of one of his close friends in Lagos, Nigeria. “...My friend was diabetic. But that wasn’t enough to kill him. He was rushed to the hospital with a seizure, and the doctors treated exactly what they saw. They were blindsided because they had zero idea of everything that happened before he got there,” Kamara told TechCabal explaining the origin of his platform.
His platform collects and securely stores users’ health data. That way, anytime those users are taken to a hospital, doctors can check their health history via the AfyaRekod app or a USSD code for informed decisions.
In February 2022, the startup raised US$2 million from notable investors, including Japanese Next Chymia, to upgrade its product offering and enter new African markets.
Apart from the health industry, John Kamara is also active in the gaming industry. In 2020, he co-founded ADA Animation, with Joy Mwangi. Through ADA Animation, the aim is to “build capacity in the animation industry, tell animated African stories and catalyze the animation industry for growth.”
He began his professional career as director of business development of the US tech firm Sun Microsystems. From there, he went on to become director of strategy for Google. He also served many internationally renowned firms on several continents. From 2014 to 2018, he served as the Director of Digital Growth & Development for Global Gaming Africa. He is currently the Director of Strategy at the Data-Driven Innovation Center at the Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (NM-AIST).
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Within four years, he was able to position FedaPay, the startup he co-founded, in several African markets. His ambition is to conquer the whole African market.
Benin-born Hermann Aguessy (photo) is since January 2022, the CEO of FedaPay Niger, the Nigerien subsidiary of the startup he co-founded five years ago with Boris Koumondji.
The startup, which offers payment aggregation solutions, is already present in several African countries, including Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal. However, its aim is to improve its offers and boost financial inclusion in the continent. It intends to first cover the whole of Francophone Africa, by entering additional markets like Burkina Faso and Cameroon.
With its eponymous solution, FedaPay aims to offer clients a handy tool, the only one they will need to collect payments.
“Users can now accept Visa, Mastercard, and mobile money payments through FedaPay. The platform can be useful for -commerce actors and everyone accepting payment online or through mobile/web apps,” Hermann Aguessy said in January 2022 after raising expansion funds through the Benin Business Angel Network (BBAN).
In 2012, the co-founder completed his Master’s of Computer Science at the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin, and joined the International Organisation of la Francophonie as an IT manager. A year later, he co-founded tech lab BLOLAB while at the same time pursuing an IT service management certificate at the ITIL Foundation.
In 2014, he returned to Benin as head of the IT department of Polytechnic School of Abomey-Calavi (EPAC). Months later, he founded Nautilus Technology, a computer engineering firm, and held management position (until 2018) at DUCIEL Sarl, an international trading firm.
With FedaPay, Hermann Aguessy earned several government recognitions. In May 2021 for instance, he received a XOF23.4 million (US$38,000) grant from Benin’s Digital Entrepreneurship Support Fund. His startup has also been commissioned by the National Agency for the Identification of Persons (ANIP) to collect payments for its services.
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During his professional career in various financial institutions, he identified a number of weaknesses in funding requests. To remedy those weaknesses, he combined his expertise with the tech skills of his partners to build Xpovi.
In March 2022, the Egyptian tech ecosystem became aware of the existence of Mohamed Marei (photo, center) with the US$300,000 seed funding he raised from angel investors. The fundraising operation was concluded just 10 months after the techpreneur launched Xpovi for Digital Solution LLC (Xpovi), the startup which developed a web-based Robotic Advisory Software
Co-founded by Mohamed Marei, Mostafa Hisham, and Taher Seif, Xpovi provides autonomous business process management services to early-stage startups by using artificial intelligence and machine learning. It thus helps them develop the effective business plan they need for their development.
For Mohamed Marei the aim is to help save time and costs for new entrepreneurs who can not afford to hire professionals for the development of their growth strategy.
“We seek to revolutionize financial and business advisory, to enable planning, monitoring, and decision-making supported by instant-based analysis and data-driven recommendations,” he explains.
Xpovi is the result of the weaknesses identified by Mr. Marei in most funding requests over his more than eight years of professional experience in investment banking. His professional career began in 2012 when he became an account payable intern for food and drink processing conglomerate Nestlé. Months later, in July 2013, he assumed the position of financial comptroller at Emirates NBD Bank.
From 2014 to 2015, he was an equity analyst for Cairo Financial Holding before joining Prime Holdings as an equity research analyst (2015 to 2016) and senior equity research analyst (2017 to 2018). In 2018, Mohamed Marei became the associate Vice-president of Beltone Financial where he spent just months before returning for a brief stint as deputy head of research at Cairo Financial Holding. Some two years later, he joined Catalyst Partners Egypt as a senior associate but left in 2021 to found Xpovi.
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Bode Pedro is the real definition of a serial entrepreneur. With fifteen years of professional and entrepreneurship experience, he has already founded five firms. Yet, given his love for technology and innate curiosity, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him start more businesses.
Nigerian serial entrepreneur Bode Pedro (photo) founded insurtech Casava in 2016 with Segun Makinde. With over 66,000 clients in Nigeria, the insurtech offers digital microinsurance services.
In February 2022, Pedro described his startup’s mission as follows: “provide affordable insurance to Nigerians and Africans in general.” As such, the startup plans to expand its client base, first in Nigeria then gradually expand in Africa.
To finance this expansion, Casava’s founders raised, last February, US$4 million from several investors like Olivier Jung, Tom Blomfield (founder of Monzo), Ed Robinson and Brandon Krieg (founders of Stash), in a round led by Target Global.
Bode Pedro holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School (2020). A few years earlier, he obtained a computer science degree from the University of Baltimore. In 2005, he began his career in the U.S. as the associate director of entertainment firm Amplifyd Entertainement Inc. The next year, he became the director of Transnational Technologies, a U.S based electronics manufacturing firm.
In 2008, Pedro returned to Nigeria and launched Veda Technology, a computer assembly firm. Two years later, he became the boss of online entertainment platform BellaNaija, and in 2013 he founded Tripican.com, a movie ticketing platform. In 2014 and 2016 (the year in which he founded Casava), he founded VisaCover, an insurtech, and online car insurance broker, and Motocheck, a vehicle inspection, and maintenance company in Nigeria, respectively.
Also, since 2021, he is the MD of Rex Credit Company Private Ltd and a member of the board of Octosoft, a healthtech that leverages artificial intelligence for its health solutions.
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The accounting graduate started in the finance industry but later entered the tech world when the need arose. His choice earned him client recognition as well as clients' and investors’ trust.
South African entrepreneur Ajay Lalu (photo) is the CEO of tech firm Consumption Information Real Time (CIRT), which helps businesses improve operational efficiency with Internet of Things (IoT).
CIRT, which Lalu co-founded in 2018 with Sanjay Soni, has already introduced several solutions in the local market. They include Fridgeloc Connected Cooler, which monitors temperature and remotely controls air conditioning generators, and Q-Hop, which facilitates contactless and cashless shopping.
In January 2021, the IoT firm announced a multi-year strategic alliance to receive “technical guidance, support and access to engineering resources, business development resources” from Microsoft and integrate its solutions to Microsoft Azure.
In March 2022, CIRT’s dynamism in South Africa’s highly competitive business technology market enabled Ajay Lalu to raise ZAR7.2 million (US$460,000) from E Squared Investments to develop its activities, implement pilot projects and grow its development team.
Ajay Lalu graduated from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1996 with a BSc in Accounting and started his professional career in the finance and accounting sector. In 2000, he joined Ernst & Young as a corporate finance manager. He continued his professional and entrepreneurship career in the finance sector till 2010 with firms like Utajiri Investment Holdings and Bravura Economic Empowerment Consulting, which he founded in 2006. At the time, he was not much interested in venturing into the tech world since there was virtually no market. In 2010, he joined the sustainable development consulting firm Black Lite Consulting as its MD. Eight years later, while still operating as Black Lite Consulting’s MD, he launched CIRT.
In 2020, he got a professional IoT certification to be able to fully contribute to the success of CIRT client firms.
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