2015 was an exciting year for many African start-ups as some entrepreneurs decided to veer into some previously untapped or scantily tapped niches. Although poor infrastructure and bureaucracy proved to be great hurdles for most start-ups, many still managed to flourish, some keying in to the advantages of using technology for efficiency effectiveness.
Here are some of Africa’s hottest startups that reported strong growth in 2015:
1. Mellowcabs (South Africa)
Mellowcabs is a taxi service offering solutions to three problems in a single package. First of all, it is eco-friendly as it is powered by an electric motor and secondly, it provides advertisers an opportunity to place their ads on the car. The third solution is that Mellowcabs offer an on-demand taxi service for urban commuters at a cheap cost without compromising the quality of service.
2. Ajumah.com (Ghana)
Africa has started to realize the importance of Freelance platforms and Ajumah is one of the successful examples. The online marketplace provides a solid platform for employers to search and hire freelancers and make payments, using mobile payment systems. Ajumah is an excellent platform for both the people who are looking for work and employers who are looking for talent in their geographical area.
3. Prepclass (Nigeria)
Prepclass won the 2014’s TechCabal Battlefield and transformed from just an online-learning platform to a huge tutor marketplace. TechCabal experienced such a growth that demand outstripped supply in 2015.
4. Gamesole (Nigeria)
Africa is also experiencing a notable growth in the mobile gaming industry and Gamesole is one of the companies that aims to deliver fun-packed games without complicating the gamers experience. The company develops games for all age groups and focuses on developing games for Windows PC and Windows mobile. Over 9 million game downloads from around the world have been reported by the company.
5. iMote (Morocco)
iMote came up with an innovative idea of controlling your smartphone using hand gestures or by pressing the iMote button. Tasks like skipping to the next music or video track, reducing smart AC’s temperature, taking a picture, etc., can be done conveniently. iMote also enables users to customize their gestures so they can interact in a more convenient and personal way.
6. Kadi Energy (Ghana)
Kadi, which means light in Ewe language, is another innovative solution for charging your smartphone using solar energy. Kadi aims to partner with the government, private sector and NGOs to bring affordable and reliable energy to the masses and their solar charger is just a beginning.
From the above, one could conveniently say that Africa is gradually coming up the tech-innovation ladder. What do you think? Let us have your comments here.
We are actually not started if truly we are to meet up, but it is still good that we started, i love the freelancing platform in Ghana
Ghana is being very strategic in its approach….. They might shock us
All these coming from Africa is quite encouraging and motivating as well. Africans in Tech needs support, financially, in particular, and infrastructure to work with, and we’ll surely go places!
Looking forward to seeing more groundbreaking stuffs as these and more in 2016.
You know we do have all the problems you have listed, but i think much of the problem comes from we not having the right and innovative ideas, we tend to think anybody can invest in any kind of business, but nope, the won’t, they analyse before investing, so we need to come up with real problem solving ideas, though the issue of infrastructures still remains
I am happy that Nigeria is in the list, we’ll get there someday.
I think Nigeria should top the list. There’s been so many of them emerging year in year out. That gives me a proud feeling
Looking at Nigeria and its enormous untapped resources, we haven’t even started yet, and thus shouldn’t even come top three, just like an elephant eating an ant’s food
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