Facebook’s FbStart Accelerator is about to begin its second cohort. In partnership with Co-Creation Hub, Facebook has announced 12 teams from Nigeria and Ghana that will take part in its 2019 FbStart Accelerator.
The 6 months accelerator is a research and mentorship driven programme for startups creating solutions with advanced technologies.
With a successful 2018 cohort that went on to cumulatively raise over $400,000 in investments and grants, this 2nd cohort is also aimed at empowering students and entrepreneurs to build solutions for everyday problems.
As earlier announced, the 2019 cohort included teams Ghana and Nigeria unlike that of last year that was all-Nigerian.
The hub will be supporting and funding these startups that play in various fields – Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) Data Science, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
Startups will also get access to top level information in the various fields they operate and learn how to optimise their solutions.
Meet the 12 selected teams
1. Appruve (Startup, Ghana)
Appruve is a financial data API. The solution is aimed at financial service providers to onboard and verify the identities of their customers in order to analyse transaction data from bank and mobile money account.
2. VNTS (Startup, Nigeria)
VNTS is a consumer devices manufacturing and software company. The startup innovates hardware solutions to solve internet connectivity issues.
3. Chekkit (Startup, Nigeria)
Chekkit is a blockchain powered anti-counterfeiting, real-time supply chain tracking and customer experience analytics platform for food, beverage and pharmaceutical product.
4. Curacel (Startup, Nigeria)
Curacel is an intelligent platform that fast tracks claims processing and detects fraudulent claims for health insurance companies, veterinarians and public health.
5. Simbi Interactives (Startup, Nigeria)
Simbi Interactives is an edtech that uses maieutic learning to solve the problem of poor education in Africa by making quality education available, affordable and accessible to all African students.
6. Haulr (Startup, Nigeria)
An IoT and AI-powered platform that tracks trucking operations in real-time to curb illegal hauling and theft of cargo, as well as boosting efficiency and communication among logistics stakeholders.
7. Vmedkit (Startup, Nigeria)
Vmedkit is a social enterprise with a mission to increase access to mental healthcare by leveraging Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET).
8. Gradely (Startup, Nigeria)
The startup uses analytics and data-driven recommendations to help schools and parents intervene and help improve children’s learning gaps through weekly adaptive homework tests.
9. InventOne (Student, Nigeria)
InventOne is a platform that enables hardware engineers, enthusiasts and hobbyists to build and deploy IoT solutions with little to no code written via a graphical programming interface.
10. Mus-comm Spill-Sat (Student, Nigeria)
Spill-sat is an oil spill, gas leak and vandalisation detection system. The solution uses a balloon satellite to collect aerial data that is processed and used to provide real-time analytics to oil companies.
11. Gesal (Student, Nigeria)
Gesal uses visual learning, AR, to visualise complicated diagrams in 3D and deploy virtual laboratory tools to secondary school students.
12. Vinsighte (Student, Nigeria)
It uses computer vision and sonar technology to aid the visually impaired in navigating their environment and help them read books easily.
Free funding
Beyond training and support, startups will also be up for equity-free funding. The 4 student teams taking part will get a funding of $10,000, whilst the startup teams will be provided with $20,000.
The various startups will also have access to technical and business mentors from the Facebook and CcHUB network. Onsite startups will also get accommodated at Facebook’s hub space, NG_Hub, while the Offsite startups will get free working spaces in other partner hubs.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
