2021 was a crucial year for both venture capitalists as well as African technological startups. Re-opening businesses and returning to everyday life meant that individuals continued to use the routines that they learned during lockdowns. As a result of this shift in preferences for customers, Africa had one of the world’s most dynamic technological industries.
As African technology continues to grow It’s not surprising. Furthermore, the market is poised for a technology boom as the percentage of Africa’s youth population is growing steadily.
A list of the top tech startups in Nigeria fast-growing firms to look out for in 2022 was derived from the last round of investment rounds.
Kippa
Kennedy Ekezie, Duke Ekezie, and Jephthah Uche were back on the drawing board after their last startup failed to uncover a business-worthy challenge in Nigeria. After that, the group set out on a trip to the market to better understand the obstacles facing Nigeria’s microbusiness owners. They came across a serious issue that they were able to fix following their explorations — bookkeeping. The issue was fixed in February 2021 when they announced the introduction of Kippa, a straightforward application for financial management for small-business owners. After just a few short months of expansion, Kippa attracted thousands of users and also raised $3.2 million in pre-seed capital in 2021. The question of how much more it can grow in 2022 seems to be logical.
Releaf
Releaf, an agritech company was founded in the year 2017 by Ikenna Nzewi, and Uzoma Ayogu, seeks to make oil palm processing more industrial in Africa and increase production. This Kraken machine, created by a agritech business with a mission designed to speed up palmnut processing and minimize the amount of waste. Releaf also supports environmentally-friendly farming practices.
Safeboda
The two-wheel ride-hailing system of this Ugandan firm was founded in the year 2018 and then launched an app with a sleek design in the year 2019. Uganda and Nigeria have now served more than 1 million users with transportation, parcel delivery, food and grocery shopping, payments, savings, and other financial services. There are 25,000 drivers working for the company and have delivered more than 40 million packages in America and the UK. US in addition to the UK.
TymeBank
With a mix of digital banking and physical service centers this tech startup in Nigeria has been accelerating the financial inclusion. There is a Pick n Pay and Boxer locations throughout the country have kiosks where customers can enroll for their service (more than 80%).
Twiga foods
Utilizing technology to create food supply chains as well as the distribution of retail across Africa, Twiga Foods has been doing this since the year 2014. The tech startups in Nigeria utilizes a mobile, cashless, B2B platform that connects farmers and retailers. It has however been difficult to keep the integrity of the products obtained from Twiga’s smallholder farmers.
Wave
When it raised $200 million from Series A funding in the year, the mobile money provider located within the United States and Senegal made headlines. The wave became one of the unicorns in Francophone Africa, with a value of $1.7 billion following this fundraising round.
In 2014, two co-founders started the business because they were dissatisfied with the difficulties and the high cost of sending money to Africa in North America. The technology-focused startup in Nigeria was created in the year 2018 by the co-founders after selling Sendwave to WorldRemit in 2017. The two-year-old business is said to be the country’s top mobile money provider and has over half the country’s adult customers.
Chooya
In the wake of prior tech-related startups in Nigeria that failed, Igwe Uguru founded Chooya the first e-commerce-focused search engine which has since transformed into Africa’s equivalent of TikTok for commerce on the internet. Allowing customers to recommend and be compensated to do so is one of the distinct advantages of Chooya’s website.
When Chooya was awarded the Entrepreneurship World Cup, with an amount of cash of $950,000, the market erupted. Since then, there has been remarkable growth, with thousands of companies joining the platform. The company was established in Aba, Nigeria, the Aba-based firm plans expansion to additional African cities by 2022, starting with Nigeria.
Edukoya
Former Google Nigeria CEO Honey Ogundeyi started Edukoya in May 2021 after being fired. Edukoya has many useful features specifically targeted at Nigerian Secondary School students. A database of questions that are based on data, instructions for each step, a personalized performance tracking system and 24/7 test preparation and homework tutoring are only some of the features available. After a short period of beta testing the program, 96 percent of students who took advantage of Edukoya did better in their tests.
Minly
Creators from all over the Middle East and North Africa are able to utilize Mainly, an Egypt-based platform to develop personal, authentic relationships with their fans. Mainly was able to raise a seed round of $3.6 million in the last year.
From artists and musicians to social media stars and professional athletes like Egyptian soccer player Mahmoud Trezeguet (who is a player for Premier League club Aston Villa) Mainly has a loyal audience of over 100,000 users since it was launched at the end of 2020.
Payday
To “create PayPal for Africa,” Payday raised a initial seed capital amount of one million dollars in the month of October 2021. The company was also the very first Rwandan firm to be accepted into Techstars Toronto Accelerator Program in the same month.
Favour Ori the Rwandan fintech, launched its service back in 2021 and is now helping Africans transfer and receive money all over the world. Payday had more than 5 000 users within its first three weeks, many of them were recommended by family and friends. It also handled $1.4 million worth of transactions.
TalentQL’s AltSchool
Many people from Africa are excited about learning digital abilities, but there’s no place to get these skills. That’s why in October of 2021, TalentQL has opened AltSchool. AltSchool is one of the tech startups in Nigeria which will start with classes in April 2022. It is designed for students who are looking to master the basics of software engineering in preparation to work working in this field.
Stitch
Following its $4 million seed round in February 2021 Stitch has secured an additional $2 million in seed funding to speed up development, launch its solution and enlarge its Nigerian workforce.
Through Stitch’s data service developers are able to connect their apps to customers’ bank accounts and share the history of their transactions and balances, validate their identities, and pay directly through their apps. In the millions of fees were processed by Stitch since its introduction, with Chipper Cash, Paystack, Franc, Sanlam, Yoco as well as Flexclub as some of the regular customers.
