Kenyan social commerce startup Mookh has been named overall winner of the Visa Everywhere Initiative, with Nigerian startups CredPal and Growsel also taking home cash prizes.
Disrupt Africa reported in March on the Sub-Saharan African launch of the Everywhere Initiative for the first time in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 12 startups eventually selected to compete for cash funding, access to Visa’s products and services, mentorship and support, and exposure to key Visa partners and clients.
At an event in Johannesburg, Kenyan social commerce startup Mookh won both the overall prize and the Social Business Payments challenge, meaning it takes home US$50,000 in prize money and the opportunity to work with Visa to further develop its concept.
Nigerian layby purchasing platform CredPal won the Merchant Payments challenge, securing US$25,000 in prize money, while another US$25,000 went to Nigerian agricultural investment platform Growsel for winning the Financial Inclusion category.
“We have had the privilege of working with some of the best minds in the region over the last few months and the selected three category winners have the potential to truly change the way people pay in the region,” said Geraldine Mitchley, senior director for digital solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa.
“The future of digital payments will be shaped through collaboration and we look forward to working with our startup partners to transform the payments landscape over the coming years to the benefit of consumers, merchants and issuers alike. It’s an exciting time in Africa’s payments and fintech space.”
The other nine finalists that took part in the final event included three more from Kenya – crowdfunding platform M-Changa, personal finance solution WayaWaya and payments platform LipaPlus – as well as two more from Nigeria, namely payments startup VoguePay and customer loyalty solution Loystar.
Two South African startups, NFC payments platform Howler and AI-powered chatbot FinChatBot, Ugandan payments service Swipe2Pay and Zambian software development company Brig Africa completed the list.
