Nigeria ranks 3rd, as it has 18 startups in combinator's W22 batch
- Posted on March 30, 2022
- Featured
- By Osinachi Gift
Y Combinator’s latest batch — W22 — features 414 startups from 42 countries, depicting more than 80 sectors. Just like previous year’s assortments, about half of the companies in the W22 batch (where YC’s Standard Deal comes to full effect for the first time) are based outside of the United States.
As usual, the U.S. has the most representation. India, with 32 startups, is the second-largest demographic represented in the new batch, while Nigeria is third, having delivered 18 startups. This is the first time an African country is appearing in the top three.
Africa as a whole has 24 startups in this new batch, a record besting S21’s 15.
Below are the catalog of the startups in alphabetical order, procuring more details about each of them, as well as context around what they are creating and why Y Combinator is helping them.
List of the 18 Nigeria startups in Y Combinator W22 batch
Dojah permits teams to relate to a variety of personality and testimony APIs for various purposes with just one integration.
Founded in 2021 by Tobi Ololade and Ayomide Oso, the Lagos-based startup identifies and verifies individuals and businesses via access to simple, easy-to-understand APIs. With their various data points and biometric verification techniques, you can easily identify and verify customers.
Website: https://www.dojah.io
Team size: 22
The corporation asserts its KYC/identity platform enables African fintechs and government bodies to inhabit a “wholistic, end-to-end verification of an individual.”
Tobi Ololade, the CEO, was the chief technological officer of TradeBuza, a data and API infrastructure for agriculture finance. Ayomide Oso, the company’s co-founder and product lead, also worked at TradeBuza.
There are only a handful of services tackling the problem of identification of Africans, who make up 81% of the people globally living without official proof of identity. So, Dojah is a welcome addition to a list that includes Smile Identity, giving fintech and other companies more options to better verify their customers.
Mobile money agents are like human ATMs. Nine out of ten mobile money agents lack liquidity for cash withdrawal and deposits to their customers, Moni offers low-interest loans to communities of mobile money agents through a referral and trust vetting system. Femi Iromini and Dapo Sobayo founded the startup in 2021.
Website: www.moni.Africa/
Team size: 12
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Moni describes itself as a community bank for Africa.
Promises include: In agency banking — a branchless banking system where agents act like human ATMs — liquidity problems abound that affect how these agents withdraw and deposit cash for their customers. That’s where Moni comes in.
It provides financing to these agents using community and trust-based systems, claiming to do so in five minutes. So far, it has disbursed over 10,000 loans and achieved 99% repayment with revenue growing 50% month-on-month.
Founders: Femi Iromini, the startup’s CEO, previously worked with The World Bank Group, and Adedapo Sobayo has experience in blockchain development.
Quick thoughts: Moni is YC’s third backing — after CrowdForce and Kudi, one of its most valuable companies on the continent — in the branchless banking space, where financial services are extended to the last mile via a network of agents.
Topship makes international shipping easy for African businesses. Founded by Moses Enewali and Babatunde Junaid in 2020, the logistics startup provides technology and services that simplify the shipping of cargo, freight and parcels. To build a global distribution system that makes delivery of parcels, cargo and freight easy for African businesses.
Website: topship.Africa/
Team size: 10
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
A platform where merchants can export and import cargo, freight and parcels to their suppliers, distributors and customers; in other words, Flexport for Africa.
Topshop says it plans to build a “Global Distribution System” that makes delivery of parcels, cargo and freight easy for African businesses.
CEO Moses Enenwali is a two-time e-commerce founder and supply chain, operator. Junaid Babatunde is the other co-founder.
How many times have we seen YC back this kind of company? Its earliest success, Flexport (S14), is an $8 billion juggernaut, and the accelerator has continuously backed Flexport-esque companies in other regions globally: Nowports, Nuvocargo, Exo Freight, Trella and SEND — the last two from Africa, which implies a sizable market opportunity for numerous players on the
4. Touch and Pay Technologies Limited (Nigeria)
Touch and Pay commenced operations in 2017 by Michael Oluwole and Olamide Afolabi to reduce the amount of physical cash in circulation by encouraging the use of electronics for payment for goods and services.
Website: www. touchandpay.me/
Founded in: 2019
Team size: 55
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Digitizes and processes microtransactions in Africa
Promises include: “We process cash-based microtransactions across Africa’s informal sector [such as] payment for bus rides. [Today] we help over 300,000 people make this payment.”
Founders: Olamide Afolabi previously founded a regional payment services company; Michael Oluwole was his director of strategy and operations.
Tap and Pay to use NFC technology to help companies from different sectors process payments. The platform — behind the card payments riders make on the bus rapid systems in Lagos — has bragging rights as one of the few companies to get the populace to adopt cashless payments seamlessly in Nigeria.
Identitypass is a Nigerian digital compliance and security company that delivers seamless identity verification solutions to businesses in Africa. Launched in January 2021 by Lanre Ogungbe, Niyi Adegboye and David Obi, Identitypass’s vision is to build a world-class compliance and security infrastructure for Africa free from identity theft and compliance bottlenecks.
Website: https://myidentitypass.com
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 17
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Building compliance and security infrastructure for Africa.
Promises include: Identity Pass says its infrastructure makes it possible for digital businesses in Africa to “easily verify their customers within seconds.”
Founders: Among them is CEO Lanre Ogungbe, who was head of business at an accounting startup and is currently a strategic adviser for Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures.
Quick thoughts: Data and security are big business, and YC backing two similar companies in the same batch is an indicator of the success of YC-backed Cognito, which was acquired by Plaid, and Veriff, an Estonian unicorn.
Heyford is building the "Doordash for Africa".
Website: heyfood.Africa/
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 5
Location: Ibadan, Nigeria
Promises include: Heyfood is targeting Gen Zs, millennials and urban professionals in Africa’s top 70 cities — a number that might reach 140 million within the next decade — who want to order food once a week. With $1 made on every delivery, Heyfood believes it is taking on a $50 billion market.
Founders: The food delivery startup is founded by Taiwo Akinropo and Demilade Odetara.
CEO Taiwo Akinropo had launched a social discovery platform for students while in the university and worked on a mobile payment solution for merchants. Demilade, a software engineer that has worked for the likes of credit-led neobanks Carbon and Fairmoney, is the CTO.
Quick thoughts: Heyfood operates in Ibadan and that saves it the stress of competing with Jumia Food and Glovo all at once — the former is in Ibadan. However, if its goal is to build the DoorDash for Africa, expanding to Lagos and other megacities across Africa is inevitable — we’re pretty sure it’s in the company’s plans — and raising a ton of money is key to staying alive in a harsh market that has left many lying its wake.
Founded in 2021, Eazipay Inc is building APIs solutions for payroll and corporate taxes for startups and small businesses who up till now process their payrolls and taxes manually with excel sheets, direct debit or through consultants. Eazipay, a payroll solution for African businesses, describes itself as the “Gusto for Africa.”
Eazipay’s USP is that everything happens at the click of a button.
Website: https://myeazipay.com
Team size: 8
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Promises include: The startup claims that its payroll payment solution can be set up in five minutes and is available for neobanks and commercial banks to reach at least 50,000 businesses. It also says it processes eight payroll payment types, from taxes and pension to insurance via its payment infrastructure.
Founders: Before Eazipay, co-founder and CEO Asher Adeniyi started Gidijobs, a site for jobs in Nigeria. Kingsley Michael and Efosa Uwogiren are the other co-founders, with experience in machine learning, data science and product development.
Quick thoughts: Despite numerous HR management services, payroll is still an issue for many SMEs. Eazipay joins the list of HR, payroll and wellness solutions Y Combinator has recently backed in Africa, including Workday and Now pay, to tackle this problem.
8. Grey — formerly Aboki Africa (Nigeria)
Grey provides foreign (USD, EUR, GBP) accounts for Africans. With these foreign accounts, users can receive their salaries or any other payment from foreign companies or individuals abroad. They can also hold their savings in foreign currency (e.g USD) or convert them to their local currency.
Website: https://grey.co
Founded in: 2020
Team size: 15
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Promises include: Grey provides foreign (USD, EUR, GBP) accounts for Africans. The startup says these foreign accounts let users receive their salaries or any other payment from foreign companies or individuals abroad, hold it in that form or convert it to their local currency.
Founders: CEO Idorenyin Obong (ex-Paystack) and COO Joseph Femi Aghedo have worked on a couple of projects for local fintech, including some volunteering experience with Andela and Ingressive Capital.
Quick thoughts: By taking the bureau de change model online, Grey is solving a convenience problem for freelancers and employees who work for foreign companies from Nigeria. While the platform can quickly dominate the Nigerian market, which isn’t enviously large and susceptible to regulatory scrutiny now and then, particularly around foreign exchange, Grey will need to expand into other countries to keep scaling.
Founded by Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa in September 2021, Duplo enables businesses across Africa to simplify their payment flows. Distributors can create unique virtual accounts for retailers and agents to make real-time payments or bank transfers, while the platform helps to reconcile their books automatically.
Website: www.tryduplo.com
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 6
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Venmo for B2B in Africa.
Founders: Among them is Yele Oyekola, the chief executive, who worked at Carbon and was an economic policy officer at the UN. He previously launched a buy now, pay later product in East Africa.
Quick thoughts: Innovation in Africa’s B2B e-commerce and retail space has been around the digitization of processes and BNPL services, but not much around cash overdependence and fraud. Duplo is tackling this head-on, creating digital wallets to help these stakeholders move money better and make cash obsolete. The only worry is incumbents might want to eat into Duplo’s meal — but then again, the market is massive.
Established in 2020 by Samuel Okwuada, a skilled pharmacist and self-taught software developer, together with his co-founder Victor Benjamin, Remedial Health initiated as a private label business, focused on contract generated products from markets like India, which they would then sell to pharmacies in Nigeria.
The health tech startup is transmitting technology therapies that encourage enormous efficiency and profitability in Africa’s pharmaceutical sector and supporting the development of a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centred healthcare network across the continent.
Remedial Health just boosted $1 million in pre-seed grants to digitize and drive efficiency in Africa's pharmaceutical sector.
Website: https://remedial.health
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 10
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What you need to know:
A business-to-business e-commerce and fintech platform for pharmacies and hospitals in Africa.
With pharmacies in Africa paying higher prices for counterfeit medicines, Remedial Health says its marketplace offers an alternative to higher-quality medicine with fast delivery (within 24 hours) and credit. It claims to sell medicine wholesale to 1 million pharmacies and hospitals in Africa.
Founders: Founder and CEO Samuel Okwuada is a self-taught engineer with experience as a pharmacist. Victor Benjamin, on the other hand, has worked for 10 years in pharma sales.
As numerous health techs try to digitize pharmacies and stem the allotment of fake and substandard pharmaceutical products in Africa, Remedial Health is taking a step further to offer them credit via its BNPL offering. Not that it’s an ingenious proposition — given that the likes of mPharma do that already— but offering credit to businesses that previously had little or no access is noteworthy.
Lenco is a multi-currency Neobank for businesses in Africa. With Lenco, startups and retail outlets can easily pay vendors, suppliers and perform cross-border payments while having access to growth capital.
In 2021, Andrew Airelobhegbe, Impact Airelobhegbe, Praise Osagie and Godstime Asine co-founded the company.
Website: https://lenco.co
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 13
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: A pan-African neobank for Africa’s 50 million businesses.
Promises include: The platform provides multi-currency accounts for startups and businesses to pay vendors, suppliers and perform cross-border payments while having access to growth capital.
Founders: Among them is CEO Andrew Airelobhegbe, who says he was previously co-founder and CEO at ogaVenue, which he described as “Nigeria’s largest online event venue booking portal.”
Quick thoughts: Lenco plays in a slightly heated business banking space, which includes startups we have covered within the past year — Sparkle, Prospa, Float, and consumer neobanks Carbon and Kuda. There are millions of businesses that need the services these startups provide, and Lenco’s end-to-end suite — which will include corporate card management in the near future — makes it a player to watch.
Founded by Kayode Disu and Peter Ekunkoya, Vendy provides an alternative payment infrastructure without the need for a payment card or consumer app that enables customers to pay businesses on their phones without internet access.
Website: https://vendy.money
Founded in: 2022
Team size: 9
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Services: Vendy enables offline payments in Africa.
Promises include: The platform says its “alternative payment infrastructure” allows customers to pay businesses on their phones without internet access, payment card or consumer app.
Founders: Among them is Kayode Disu, who says he has over 12 years of experience in building digital security and payments products for “the top banks and payment switches in West Africa.”
Quick thoughts: USSD is Africa’s de-facto method of offline payments. And just in the manner where payment gateways such as Flutterwave and Paystack allow merchants to send payment links to their customers who pay via online banking, Vendy is doing the same with USSD. There are options for this on online payments gateways, but Vendy seems to have a lot more providers.
Playhouse is a crypto startup that is building the tools and infrastructure that make it easier, faster and cheaper for anyone in Africa to access crypto. Its founders are Hakeem Adeyemi Orewole, Bashir Aminu and John Anisere
Website: https://payourse.com
Founded in: 2020
Team size: 12
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Builds tools and infrastructure for easy access to crypto in Africa.
Promises include: Payourse says its tools and infrastructure make it “easier, faster and cheaper” for anyone in Africa to access crypto and web3 services.
Founders: Among them is CEO Bashir Aminu, who said he previously built Coinprofile, a similar company enabling the sending and receiving of cryptocurrency.
Sendme is an on-demand provider of clean meat to individuals and food businesses.
Website: http://www.sendme.ng
Founded in: 2021
Team size: 40
Location: Ibadan, Nigeria
Promises include: “We built a chatbot that lets customers place orders for meat on WhatsApp and they get it within 3 hours.”
Founders: Daniel Afolayan is the CEO of Sendme; he previously worked as a growth lead at SeamlessHR before running an innovation hub and a logistics company.
Quick thoughts: As of 2019, Nigeria was said to account for half of West Africa’s meat consumption. And what better way to provide convenience to a meat-eating population than via apps or for SendMe, a chatbot. Though the Ibadan-based platform caters to individual households, it also serves food businesses, where it’ll face stiff completion from Vendease, another YC-backed company.
Founded by Emmanuel Aina and Subomi Oluwalana in the year 2021.
Convoy is an open-source cloud-native webhook service, with out-of-the-box security, reliability, and scalability for your webhooks infrastructure
Website: https://getconvoy.io
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