Nigerian fintech startups Cleva and Miden have been selected for the W24 batch of the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator.
The W24 batch of Y Combinator, which played a role in the early days of companies like Airbnb, Coinbase and Dropbox, among others, W24, kicked off in January, with 137 startups so far having been named as participants.
Two of those are from Africa, and they are both Nigerian fintechs. Cleva, founded in 2023, claims to be “democratising access to USD banking for emerging markets”, allowing users to receive payments to their digital Cleva account from clients, employers, and investors across the globe.
The startup announced a US$1.5 million pre-seed round of funding, which included Y Combinator, in January. The round was led by 1984 Ventures, and also featured The Raba Partnership, Byld Ventures, FirstCheck Africa and several angel investors.
The second selected startup is Miden. Founded in 2022, Miden allows businesses to issue virtual cards to their customers through its API, empowering businesses to seamlessly provide a range of financial products.
Y Combinator has cooled down on Africa since its W22 batch, when 24 startups from the continent took part. The number of African startups taking part in Y Combinator has steeply declined since – there were only seven in S22, three in W23, and three in S23.
The accelerator’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). It occupies an ambiguous position within Africa’s startup ecosystem, but is lauded by entrepreneurs for the positive impact it has on their businesses.
Disrupt Africa reported in 2022 the accelerator had increased its standard deal size to US$500,000, the amount Cleva and Miden have now secured access to. Until then, Y Combinator 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.
