Meet Nigeria’s Ladda and 4 Other African Startups vying for $500k at Seedstars World Competition

The 2020/21 Seedstars World Competition is already at the regional stages. And for this stage, 20 startups will pitch between April 12 and 16 to secure a spot at the Grand Finale. Eventually, only 1 startup will be crowned winner and presented the prize of $500,000 at the finale.

10 startups were selected from Africa to take part in the 2019/20 regional competition. They include Crop2Cash, Exuus, Pezesha, Teheca and Nvoicia were some of the startups that participated. This year, however, only 5 African startups made it to the Regionals.

Altogether, 20 startups were selected from different parts of the world. They are Odesh (Papua New Guinea), Flamingo Foods (Tanzania), SmartFuture (Singapore), Rohobot Home-based Services (Ethiopia), and Finology (Malaysia).

Others are Ladda (Nigeria), Pegasi (Venezuela), Alfi (Peru), Sparco (Zambia), Klouser (Argentina), Al-Mamwan (Egypt), BiomWeb (Lebanon), Droobi (Qatar), Fulfilment Bridge (Tunisia), ELN (Pakistan), Iman (Uzbekistan), Alter (Russia), Payze (Georgia) and CAPTURE solutions (Ivory Coast).

The 20 shortlisted startups were selected from a pool of 94 applicants and the number will grow even smaller after they pitch at the Regionals. Here is a bit more about the African startups in the competition.

Ladda (Nigeria)

Ladda is a fintech startup that helps people invest in verified ventures. The startup was founded by Oluwatosin Olaseinde and believes that retail investors should be able to invest in both local and foreign investments from as little as N500.

The startup’s array of investment opportunities includes savings, mutual funds, global stocks and local stocks. It works with asset management firms that hold the money in custodian accounts to ensure the safety of customers’ investments

Flamingo Foods (Tanzania)

Flamingo Foods is a foodtech startup that uses climate tech to forecast food deficit and the items that will be surplus before they become known. Using its tech, the startup is able to help agricultural stakeholders proactively react to food insecurity.

The startup is also one of the main rice producers in the Rukwa Valley. It sources and stores high-quality paddy rice from farmers in the valley. The paddy rice is processed and then sold nationally to other countries.

Rohobot home-based healthcare services (Ethiopia)

This Ethiopian startup offers home-based healthcare services for chronically ill and aged people at an affordable price. It also creates employment opportunities for fresh graduates from medical colleges who are willing to care for its target audience.

The startup also trains people on the standard operating procedures for home-based healthcare, specific nursing care and general care and support. As more people stay at home and maintain social distancing as much as possible, Rohobot’s service has increasingly become relevant to people who want to avoid clinics as well as those who are not able to get care physically in the hospitals.

CAPTURE solutions (Ivory Coast)

Capture Solutions develops tech solutions that help entrepreneurs, startups, schools and organizations to get reliable information. Its solutions include weightcapture, capagri, attendancecapture and secucapture.

Weightcapture helps farmers and produce handlers to track the weight of goods digitally as well as manage and process it accurately. Secucapture gives users onsite security solutions for access, verification and incident management.

Sparco (Zambia)

Sparco is a fintech company operating in South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. It provides financial solutions to both individuals and the corporate sector in emerging markets across Africa and the rest of the globe.

Through its app, it allows users to receive and send money from the Credit/Debit Card. It also facilitates the transfer of funds from one mobile money account to another. Sparco’s payment gateway lets merchants accept payment online and get instant notification of the transaction that has just occurred.