Denis Opudo
MEST Africa finally announced the four winners that will showcase its MEST Africa Challenge. This will be a pitching challenge. Winners from South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria will showcase at the MEST Africa Summit. The event will take place on 20th June this year in Cape Town SA. The four startups will showcase their solutions to more than 150 corporate executives and investors from Silicon Valley, Europe and across Africa. The winner will take home an equity investment worth $50 000.
According to MEST managing director, Aaron Fu, all the regional winners came up with solutions that tackle real challenges. They have gone ahead to command their home-based markets. He added that the winners have proven that they are in a position to do well abroad. He said that MEST was happy to host the event to help the winners on how they can improve and how it can support them as they grow.
swiftVee
Based in Cape Town, swiftVee is an agricultural and livestock trading site founded by Alex Mode, Russel Luck and Andrew Meyer in 2016. Google also announced in March this year that the site was among the 12 startups shortlisted to join the first cohorts of its Launchpad Accelerator.
Cowtribe
Based in Temale, Ghana, Cowtribe startup offers the highly demanded and subscription USSD based service that links veterinarians with farmers. It then gives farmers animal vaccines and various livestock services. It was co-founded by Alima Bawah who is operating as the COO and Awin Peter, the company CEO in 2016.
Accounteer
This Nigerian based startup is a cloud accounting site that offers payroll management software designed for African SMEs. Accounteer was founded in 2015 by Merijin Campsteyn who is also the CEO. It is currently offering services to more than 8,000 businesses in 68 countries globally.
Data Integrated
The Kenyan based fintech startup majors in end-to-end venture payment solutions for SMEs. The solutions offered by Data Integrated startup included Mishahara payroll system, s-Transport which is a transport management platform and Mobitil a payment processing site for bars and restaurants. The startup was founded by Mary Mwangi the CEO in 2012.
