Nigerian startups Fyodor Biotechnologies, MailHaven and Mobile Forms have been selected for the Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups accelerator programme, which will offer them funding and mentorship.
The 500 Startups accelerator is a four-month long programme, which sees thousands of applicants vying for intake and only two per cent successfully making the cut.
The latest cohort – batch 22 – began in San Francisco two weeks ago, consisting of 36 innovative startups from 14 countries. More than 40 per cent of the companies are based outside of the United States, with Nigeria the only African country represented.
Fyodor Biotechnologies, MailHaven and Mobile Forms will receive workspace, mentorship and access to the 500 Startups network. They have also received US$150,000 each in seed funding, though US$37,500 in programme fees have been deducted.
E-health startup Fyodor Biotechnologies has developed a non-invasive technology that helps people with a fever diagnose malaria in 25 minutes using a few drops of urine instead of blood, while MailHaven is an electronic mailbox that helps suburban homeowners secure and monitor their deliveries without the need for wired power or home Wi-Fi.
Mobile Forms is a platform for local and international businesses to crowdsource reliable market data in Africa. You can read Disrupt Africa’s profile of the startup from last year here.
500 Startups, one of the most renowned accelerator programmes in the world, has increasingly opened up to African startups in recent years, with Kenya’s CardPlanet – now PayKind – and Egypt’s ElWafeyat making it into batch 11, and South Africa’s SweepSouth and Ghana’s Kudobuzz making it into batch 14.
Nigerian startups have proven popular in recent programmes, with the likes of Printivo, Aella Credit, Talentbase and Podozi having received backing from 500 Startups.
