Startup Battlefield Africa Recap

The Techcrunch Startup Battlefield Africa took place this month in our backyard to showcase how our continent’s rich diversity – in language, culture, and perspectives – has fostered innovation and creativity in the startup industry. TechCrunch together with Facebook wanted to discover great early stage companies that have created technology to solve the big problems and help develop the ecosystem.

Bankelele was there to give us the inside scoop:

The Round-up

15 startup companies pitched their ideas in a bid to win the grand prize. Each of these companies were judged by a panel of top notch investors and founders, with moderation by Facebook and TechCrunch staff.

The competing companies were drawn from sectors like finance (WeCashUp, Abacus), data collection (Form+, Delivery Science), logistics (Lori Systems), sales (Sellio,  SynCommerce), entertainment (Big5 Games, Tango TV, Gazkar from Lomay), health – ConnectMed,  education (M-Shule, Dot Learn), recruitment – Talent2Africa and agri-business – AgroCenta.

They also had a great line-up speakers that discussed everything from investing in startups to improving connectivity across the entire continent of Africa.

And the winner is…

At the end of the day it was Lori Systems, a logistics platform being developed to simplify the movement of cargo in Kenya, who took home the gold. They walked away with $25,000 and an all-expense paid trip for two to compete at Disrupt SF 2018.

Not only that but winners will join TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Alumni Network. Alumni have collectively raised nearly $7 billion and produced nearly 100 exits and IPOs to date.

Feel like you missed out?

Are you feeling the FOMO? We’ve got you covered! From speaker sessions to Startup Battlefield pitches, you can watch all the videos from the event here. Our favourite was the panel on “Will Startups Solve Africa’s Biggest Development Problems?”

Are you looking for other amazing events to attend? Check out the events that we have lined up for you here.