Four African startups are among the initial 156 announced as participating in the S22 batch of the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator.
The S22 batch of the Y Combinator programme, which played a role in the early days of companies like Airbnb, Coinbase and Dropbox among others, is currently taking place, and concludes with a demo day in September.
Disrupt Africa reported recently the accelerator had increased its standard deal size to US$500,000. Until now, YC invested US$125,000 for seven per cent equity, but under its new standard deal it will now also invest an additional US$375,000 on an uncapped SAFE with “Most Favoured Nation” (MFN) terms.
The previous edition of the accelerator, the W22 batch, had the most African representatives ever, with 24 startups from the continent taking part, and four have already been confirmed among the initial 156 confirmed for S22.
They include two from Nigeria, namely fintech startup Pivo and food delivery platform Chowdeck, as well as Kenyan payments platform Patika and Ghanaian auto parts distribution service Garage Mobility. More are expected to be confirmed over the course of the programme.
Y Combinator’s alumni features continental royalty such as Flutterwave, Paystack and Kobo360 (not to mention Cowrywise, MarketForce, Kudi, WaystoCap, WorkPay, Healthlane, Trella, 54gene, CredPal, NALA and Breadfast).
The accelerator occupies an ambiguous position within the continent’s startup ecosystem, but is lauded by entrepreneurs for the positive impact it has on their businesses.
