Pezesha, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace and credit scoring platform for the unbanked has been named the best startups at this years Seedstars competition.
With the win, Pezesha will be participating at the Seedstars Africa Summit and possibly attend the global Seedstars Summit, which takes place in Switzerland, in April 2019.
Seedstars Summit is a weeklong training program, with the opportunity to meet the 65+ winners from other fast growing economies, as well as investors and mentors from around the world. The final day of the Summit is dedicated to pitching in front of an audience of more than 1000 attendees, with the possibility of winning up to USD one million in equity investment and other prizes.
“Having an all-women jury panel to choose the Seedstars World Nairobi winner was a new milestone for Seedstars. Nairobi shows year after year that it able to produce high quality startups and so of course this year the competition was fierce yet again.” says Claudia Makadristo, Regional Manager for Africa.
Other startups that pitched during Seedstars include Workpay, which came in the second with its employee management and payment solution using biometrics and mobile phones with automated salary payments to banks and mobile wallets.
Third position was Tanda, a fintech startup working to revolutionize access to goods and essential digital financial services for MSME’s across Africa. Through Tanda, micro-retailers can not only access inventory on credit, but also become access points for essential services such as Airtime, Utility payments, M-banking & Insurance for their customers; grabbed the last spot in the top 3.
The other startups invited to pitch were:
| Ilara Health | Ilara Health brings accurate and affordable diagnostics to the millions of people in Africa who today struggle to access a simple blood test |
| Julla | Julla is a point of sale financing company making it possible for users to purchase items now and pay later. |
| Lentera | Lentera combines data from ground sensors, drone imaging and satellite imaging to provide actionable insights to farmers increasing their yield and reducing the cost of fertilizer and pesticides. |
| Nurse-In-Hand | Nurse-in-Hand partners with county governments to offer accidents to first responder and home-based care services to geriatrics and pregnant mothers in Kenya |
| Pesabase | Pesabase is set of remittance, payment and banking solutions that leverages blockchain to provide financial simplification and inclusion in Africa. |
| Shamba Records | Shamba Records is a distributed ledger that runs on Blockchain which uses big data and artificial intelligence to collect farm records. This digitized system can be used to track, identify and verify their harvest. |
| Afyachapchap | A mobile and web platform that provides a listing of health service providers which users can book and pay. However, Afyachapchap also provides access its users access to emergency medical loans |
| Asilimia | Asilimia empowers MSMEs through a cheap, easy and tailored payment and financial services ecosystem to make them resilient and enable growth |
Asilimia was added as a wildcard from the bootcamp/training held before the competition.
Continuing on its world tour of fast-growing startup scenes in emerging markets, Seedstars World’s next stop is Accra at Standard Bank Incubator, to select the best startup in Ghana.
Seedstars World is looking for smart startups that solve regional issues and/or develop profitable products for the global market. Startups are invited to apply here.
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