Safaricom has today announced the first cohort of the Spark Accelerator Program which will include nine early-stage startups. The program will provide the selected startups with a blend of training, mentorship, and go-to-market support. This will include access to markets, capital, technology, and product development support.
The Accelerator program was launched last year in partnership with M-PESA Africa and Sumitomo Corporation following the restructuring of Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund. The program seeks to accelerate product innovation by enabling startups to grow and scale their businesses.
“Leveraging technology to drive meaningful innovation is a strong premise under which the Spark Accelerator program was founded,” Safaricom CEO, Peter Ndegwa said during the announcement. “By supporting and investing in these tech-enabled startups, we aim to drive significant societal change and economic growth.”
The startups were selected across different categories such as Embedded Finance, Fintech, SME Productivity Tools and Content. The first cohort of the Spark Accelerator Program will include:
- Chumz – a fintech seeking to encourage savings and investment,
- BlackRhino VR – an Extended Reality company building for creators and brands alike. It recently launched a no-code augmented-reality platform,
- HealthX Africa – a MedTech player offering both digital and physical touchpoints,
- Nobuk – a fintech seeking to simplify financial reporting and streamline payment collection,
- Chpter – an SME Productivity startup building an AI-powered B2C platform for social media marketing and payments,
- Faidi HR – a startup building a one-in-all Cloud payroll and HR platform for businesses,
- Churpy – a startup seeking to automate repetitive and manual CFO tasks in the office,
- VunaPay – a fintech in the Agricultural space facilitating payments to smallholder farmers, and
- Twiva – a social-commerce platform that seeks to connect brands to social media influencers to market their products and services.
Quotes
“By leveraging our extensive global business know-how with excellent operations and customer base of Safaricom and M-PESA Africa, we are excited to expand digital financial services and contribute to the development of the Kenyan and African economies, human resource development and a more prosperous life through supporting and collaborating with advanced startups,” said Katsuya Kashiki, General Manager of Smart Communication Platform SBU, Sumitomo Corporation.
“In alignment with our commitment to accelerating innovation for African prosperity, we are excited to welcome these startups into the programme. Their unique solutions harness transformative opportunities to leverage technology to significantly improve the quality of lives of millions of Kenyans. We look forward to supporting the startups to optimize their offerings, scale their solutions and expand their impact,” said Nissi Madu, Managing Partner at iHUB/CcHUB
