Visa Announces Application Process for Fifth Round of Africa Fintech Accelerator Program
Visa's Africa Fintech Accelerator, a key component of the company's commitment to bolster Africa's digital economy, has seen impressive results. Alumni of the programme have raised over $55 million in funding since completing the programme.
The Africa Fintech Accelerator, now accepting applications for its fifth cohort, is designed to support early-stage fintech startups across Africa. To be eligible, startups must have a market-ready product or minimum viable product (MVP), and be at the Seed to Series A stage, demonstrating early traction in the market.
The programme, which runs for 12 weeks in a hybrid format, offers a range of benefits to participating startups. These include mentorship from industry professionals, Visa training and access to its developer tools, product perks valued over US$200,000, pitch and funding opportunities with Visa, Plug and Play, and leading VCs, as well as collaborations with major industry partners.
Some of the standout startups from Cohort 4 include:
- Hsabati (Morocco), a business operations management platform that enables data collection and ecosystem scoring to facilitate financing through partner banks.
- Maishapay (Democratic Republic of Congo), an all-in-one B2B financial platform offering payroll solutions, digital payments, and POS terminals to streamline transactions.
- Muda (Kenya), a digital asset exchange and OTC platform focused on cross-border payments and stablecoin liquidity solutions for African businesses and fintechs.
Sevi (Kenya) streamlines B2B payments within non-digital value chains, optimizing efficiency in credit, payments, and reconciliation for suppliers and access to stock and stock financing for small retailers.
The programme has also generated $3 million+ in new revenue during the training period. Other notable startups include:
- Woliz (Morocco), a fintech ecosystem transforming nano-stores into digital hubs with loyalty rewards, payments, and AI-driven operations.
- Flend (Egypt), a digital Non-Bank Financial Institution (NBFI) for SME finance, offering tech-enabled, data-driven solutions to close the financing gap for underserved businesses in North Africa.
- PressPayNg (Nigeria), an education-focused fintech platform that provides banking, financing, savings, and insurance solutions to help fund education.
Startups working on solutions in areas such as cross-border payments, SMB digitization, AI-driven payments, climate insurance, social commerce, neo-banking, payroll and lending, operate across 31 markets in Africa. The collective portfolio value of the startups that have participated in the first three cohorts is estimated at $1.1 billion.
Visa has pledged to invest $1 billion in Africa by 2027. The application deadline for Cohort 5 is August 15, 2025. The selection process involves an initial screening followed by virtual interviews. The programme will culminate in an in-person Demo Day, where startups will pitch to investors, ecosystem players, and funding partners.
Other notable startups include:
- ShopOkoa (Kenya), offering AI-driven credit and payment solutions to small- and micro-enterprises in Africa through a membership-based system combining daily savings, revenue-based financing, and automated cashflow tracking.
- Lemonade Payments (Kenya), offering a white-label digital payments solution to businesses, providing secure, blockchain-powered wallets without compromising user data.
- MNZL (Egypt), expanding access to credit through a digital platform for asset-backed financing by tapping into consumers' home and car equity.
- Twiva (Kenya), a social commerce platform where businesses market and resell their products and services through social media influencers.
- mystocks.africa, simplifying investing across African stock markets by providing a unified platform for trading all African stocks.
- OKO Finance Ltd (Ivory Coast), distributing automated climate insurance, allowing farms to boost their climate resilience and banks to de-risk their investment in agricultural projects.
- Startbutton (Nigeria), a merchant of record helping businesses expand across Africa by paying and receiving local currency payments from their customers in a tax-efficient and compliant manner, without the need to set up local offices.
- Motito (Ghana), an asset financing marketplace that provides alternative payment options for customers to purchase essential assets.
- Zazu (South Africa), a neobank for African small and medium-sized businesses, offering digital business accounts, expense management, invoicing, and bookkeeping tools.
- IPT Africa (Mauritius), providing cross-border payments solutions, including payroll processing, real-time FX pricing, and same-day bulk payments.
- BigDot.ai (Zimbabwe), helping Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) use less cash through digital transformation, seamless checkouts, and blockchain-powered financial inclusion.
- Vittas (Nigeria), empowering healthcare providers with access to tailored financing, digital tools, and payment solutions, enabling them to improve patient care.
Since the program's 2023 launch, 64 startups have participated in the first three cohorts of the Africa Fintech Accelerator. ChatCash (Zimbabwe) enables African SMEs to sell and get paid through popular messaging apps using AI-powered, multilingual tools. Shiga Digital (Nigeria) provides simplified access to decentralized financial solutions for the African market with a purpose-built Defi account.
The Africa Fintech Accelerator, now opening applications for its fifth cohort, is designed to support early-stage fintech startups in Africa who are at the Seed to Series A stage, demonstrating early traction in the market. Participating startups stand to benefit from mentorship, training, product perks, pitch opportunities, and collaborations with industry partners, aiming to enhance their investing potential in the business sector through technology.
For instance, Hsabati (Morocco), a business operations management platform, and Muda (Kenya), a digital asset exchange focused on cross-border payments, are examples of startups that have leveraged the programme to raise significant funding and generate new revenue. These startups, among the standout ones from previous cohorts, are operating in various sectors such as SMB digitization, AI-driven payments, neo-banking, and climate insurance, collectively estimated to be worth $1.1 billion.
