Visa Begins Second Accelerator Cohort with African Startups

Emma Okonji

Visa, a world leader in digital payments, has shortlisted over 20 Fintech startups from across Africa to participate in the second cohort of its Africa Fintech Accelerator programme.

As part of Visa’s work to unlock financial innovation across the continent, the biannual programme offers 12 weeks of mentorship and personalised training, providing seed to series ‘A’ startups with exclusive opportunities to access funding, development, and resources.

Cohort 2 startups operate across 28 African countries, a 55 per cent increase from Cohort 1 where the representatives operated across 18 countries. Among the shortlisted startups for the second cohort, 65 per cent of them feature female leadership, rising from 43 per cent in the inaugural edition.

The selected startups offer a range of solutions, such as neo-banking, merchant payments, credit scoring, risk and identity management, embedded finance, social commerce, escrow services, and more. They aim to address the challenges and opportunities in the African Fintech landscape, such as financial inclusion, access to credit, cross-border payments, and digital transformation.

Vice President and Head of sub-Saharan Africa at Visa, Aida Diarra, said: “At Visa, we believe in uplifting innovation while driving access and inclusion across the financial ecosystem. Today, we are proud to say that participants for our second cohort represents more than 50 per cent of countries across Africa, up from a third during our first cohort. Not only that, but women are in leadership roles across the majority of these cutting-edge startups. We have a robust, diverse selection of innovators seeking to shape the future of commerce and finance, and Visa is happy to help them take the next step to where they need to be.”