Africa’s most fun startups aren’t at all times the loudest.
At TechCabal, we consider in spotlighting early movers, quiet builders, and unique thinkers fixing Africa’s hardest issues in daring, other ways.
With Startups on Our Radar, we’re shining the sunshine on new startups throughout Africa that we discover attention-grabbing however have little protection. We’ll be exploring their use instances, alternatives, and fashions. Most significantly, we’ll be in search of groups taking unconventional approaches, filling basic gaps, and creating worth in a method that feels recent, centered, and significant.
These should not essentially probably the most funded or most adopted, however they’re doing the form of work that deserves extra consideration. Know a startup we should always function subsequent? Please nominate right here.
Startups on Our Radar is a bi-weekly column; count on our subsequent dispatch on Could seventh.
Right here’s our first dispatch:
1. Vaulfi (Fintech, Algeria)
Whereas cross-border remittance startups in Nigeria are falling head over heels to assist customers obtain and make worldwide funds, it’s a distinct story in Algeria. Customers within the nation usually depend on worldwide banks like HSBC to ship and obtain cash globally.
In 2023, Safa Korti (ex-BNP Paribas compliance) and Karim Khattaby (ex-Revolut engineer) teamed as much as change that narrative. Collectively they based Vaulfi to assist Algerians ship and obtain cash globally. The app gives a multicurrency e-wallet platform that permits customers to make worldwide cash transfers and get bodily and debit playing cards.
Why we’re watching: Vaulfi is poised to grow to be the market chief in providing legally compliant multi-currency accounts in Algeria. Vaufi will allow Algerians to have entry to near-instant worldwide cash transactions. Beforehand, customers relied on worldwide banks to make these transfers and sometimes needed to wait days to substantiate receipt of funds.
Vaulfi can even offer customers internationally accepted bodily and digital playing cards. As of 2022, solely 20% of Algerians personal debit playing cards.
This makes the startup a pioneering participant in a market largely untouched by neobanks.
2. Revwit (SaaS, Nigeria)
Based by former workers of Interswitch, Bolt, Microsoft, and the London Inventory Change Group—Chinedu Ossai, Dayo Adekanmbi, and Damilola Aluede—Revwit is constructing income infrastructure and CRM instruments for African gross sales groups.
By means of its app, African gross sales groups can mechanically seize leads from types, emails, and calendars and handle offers via customisable pipelines that replicate native gross sales realities. The app additionally integrates seamlessly with e mail, eliminating guide information entry, and gives ready-made templates so groups can begin promoting instantly. The platform helps one-to-one and bulk personalised e mail outreach, good reminders, and collaborative deal administration, all inside a single, easy-to-use interface.
Why we’re watching: Revwit is what Salesforce would possibly appear like if it had been born in Lagos.
The product is thoughtfully constructed for African gross sales groups—easier UX, native foreign money help, and workflows that replicate how enterprise is completed right here. With over $800 million in deal quantity processed simply six months after the launch of its MVP, they’re exhibiting sturdy early traction and clear demand.
3. Apexloads (Logistics, Kenya)
Apart from working capital constraints, one of many largest challenges for logistics startups throughout Africa is the dearth of backhaul. After finishing a supply, transporters usually return empty, with no items to hold again. This inefficiency drives up the price of shifting items, as transporters issue within the chance of an empty return journey when setting costs.
Launched in 2019 by Charles Thuo, Apexloads solves this problem by connecting shippers and truckers via its app. Its load board lets transporters view and declare out there hundreds by location, maximising truck utilisation and lowering empty return journeys.
Past load matching, Apexloads gives a transport administration system, CRM instruments, and bill factoring—giving logistics companies real-time cargo visibility, streamlined operations, stronger consumer relationships, and quicker fee entry.
Why we’re watching: In a sector nonetheless pushed by cellphone calls, WhatsApp, and guide coordination, Apexloads gives the infrastructure to scale back downtime, enhance transparency, and unlock working capital. With operations in Nigeria and Kenya and backing from Techstars, it’s well-positioned to grow to be the digital spine of African logistics, whereas layering in fintech for long-term monetisation.
4. Zimi (EV, South Africa)
Think about turning your (electrical) automobile into an influence financial institution.
That’s the promise of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) expertise—turning your EV into a large energy financial institution to your dwelling, enterprise, and even the nationwide grid. V2G allows electrical energy to move each methods: your automobile expenses when there may be plentiful power, and sends energy again when demand spikes or outages hit
Launched in 2021 by Michael Maas, Zimi is pioneering V2G expertise in South Africa. In a rustic the place load shedding is a every day headache, Zimi’s answer is well timed. The corporate not too long ago received a $320,000 grant from EEP Africa to check out this expertise and companion with fleet operators.
Why we’re watching: Zimi has a first-mover benefit by constructing the foundational infrastructure for EV adoption in South Africa, beginning with fleet and logistics operators who face rising gasoline prices.
As one of many first movers on this area, Zimi combines {hardware} (AC/DC chargers) with good software program for power administration, funds, and fleet optimisation—creating a number of income streams and long-term defensibility. Its concentrate on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tech positions it uniquely as each a mobility and power resilience answer in a rustic tormented by energy instability.
5. Caantin (AI, Zambia)
From fintechs nudging customers to finish signups or pay again loans to FMCG manufacturers chasing every day orders from mom-and-pop outlets, cellphone calls are a vital a part of every day operations.
Nevertheless, these cellphone conversations are a key price within the gross sales operations of those corporations. Launched in 2021, Caantin, a Zambian communication startup, desires to scale back the price of making cellphone requires companies through the use of AI voice brokers to have these conversations at scale.
My first trial with the extremely human-sounding AI agent made me a believer. We acted as a mom-and-pop store attempting to put orders. Save for a couple of communication gaps, the dialog felt pure. The decision included the intonations, pauses, and inadvertent interruptions of a real-life dialog.
Why we’re watching: With low smartphone penetration, patchy web, and excessive illiteracy charges in lots of areas, voice, not textual content or chat, is probably the most sensible interface for AI adoption at scale in Africa. What units Caantin aside is its deep localisation: the AI voice brokers are designed to grasp and converse a number of African languages, dialects, and accents, guaranteeing that automated conversations really feel pure and culturally related to customers throughout the continent.
6. Stylebitt (SaaS, Nigeria)
When you’ve ever sewn garments with a Nigerian tailor, you understand the battle: missed deadlines, misplaced measurements, shock “tight matches,” and the heartbreak of selecting up an outfit that appears nothing like what you ordered. Tailors juggle dozens of purchasers, scribble measurements in tattered notebooks, and sometimes lose observe of orders, resulting in delays, mix-ups, and annoyed clients.
For a lot of trend entrepreneurs, this chaos is simply enterprise as traditional.
Stylebitt desires to vary that narrative. Based in 2021 by Ibrahim Gana and Treasured Aleaji, Stylebitt is a SaaS platform purpose-built for Africa’s casual trend sector—tailors, designers, and boutique house owners trying to run their companies with the professionalism of a world model.
The all-in-one SaaS platform gives tailor-made instruments to save lots of buyer measurements digitally, handle and observe orders from begin to end, generate and ship skilled invoices, and entry real-time enterprise snapshots to watch income and efficiency.
Why we’re watching: Stylebitt solves an actual ache level for Africa’s trend entrepreneurs, particularly tailors and boutique house owners who’ve lengthy struggled with disorganised buyer data, misplaced measurements, and guide paperwork. By providing a purpose-built SaaS platform that digitises order administration, invoicing, and buyer information, Stylebitt makes it simpler for trend companies to function effectively and ship on time. The platform’s complete measurement monitoring and enterprise snapshot instruments assist entrepreneurs scale back errors, receives a commission quicker, and make smarter choices about their progress.
7. SpitchAI (AI, Nigeria)
After I first tried Google’s NotebookLM podcast function, I instantly thought: what if this labored in an African accent or an area language? Most world AI fashions are constructed with out Africans in thoughts, from the datasets they’re skilled on to how they course of speech. Consequently, AI speech instruments from main tech corporations usually battle with African languages and dialects.
Spitch AI is altering that. Launched in 2023 by Temiloluwa Babalola, Spitch is growing speech-to-text and text-to-speech fashions particularly for African languages and accents. Its expertise already helps correct voice recognition and natural-sounding speech synthesis in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Nigerian-accented English. It plans so as to add extra West and East African languages quickly.
We couldn’t cease enthusiastic about the quite a few use instances for Spitch, from educating smallholder farmers of their native languages to powering native buyer help,
Why we’re watching: Spitch is among the many first to supply high-quality, developer-friendly African language AI APIs, addressing a ache level that impacts a whole lot of tens of millions throughout the continent. As digital adoption accelerates in Africa, demand for localised, voice-driven interfaces will solely develop. For companies, Spitch’s AI voice instruments can automate multilingual help, scale back customer support prices, and allow immediate scaling with out hiring massive help groups.
8. Wayak (Healthtech, Egypt)
Launched in 2019 by Khaled Ismail, Ph.D., Wayak delivers discounted drugs to sufferers with continual situations. Wayak gives round the clock on-line consultations with medical doctors and pharmacists via its cell app whereas offering customers entry to main diagnostic labs at lowered charges. The corporate additionally maintains digital medical data which are up to date biannually on the app.
Why we’re watching: With medical health insurance penetration in Egypt nonetheless low and public healthcare underfunded, tens of millions face excessive out-of-pocket prices for important care. Wayak addresses this hole by making reasonably priced, steady healthcare accessible to underserved populations. The chance is critical: Egypt’s healthcare market is valued at $25 billion, and throughout Africa, over 300 million individuals lack insurance coverage, pointing to a $200 billion marketplace for reasonably priced care fashions like Wayak by 2030.
9. Vendy (Social commerce, Nigeria)
When you stay in Nigeria, you interacted with a WhatsApp vendor to your final buy. Extra persons are shopping for immediately via WhatsApp than ever earlier than, making it one of many fastest-growing social commerce channels within the nation.
Vendy is constructing a social commerce platform on WhatsApp to satisfy patrons and sellers proper the place they’re. With Vendy, Nigerian companies and retailers can arrange customisable WhatsApp outlets in minutes, showcase their stock, automate orders and invoicing, and settle for funds seamlessly, all inside the app.
Why we’re watching: Social commerce is rising in Nigeria, with extra Nigerians buying merchandise immediately via social media platforms. With over 103 million energetic social media customers in Nigeria, world analysis and intelligence agency Analysis and Markets estimates the market alternative to be about $1.55 billion. Vendy is correct on the centre of this development—serving to Nigerians promote and store immediately on WhatsApp, the nation’s hottest social platform with an estimated 51 million customers. As social shopping for turns into the norm, Vendy’s concentrate on seamless transactions inside on a regular basis chat apps places it in a powerful place to seize worth on this fast-growing area.
10. Inalipa (E-commerce, Tanzania)
Launched in 2020 by Hafiz Juma, Inalipa is a Tanzania-based e-commerce platform that connects each companies, together with micro and large-scale retailers, and particular person customers to a variety of fast-moving shopper items (FMCG). The platform operates each B2B and B2C marketplaces: micro and small retailers can entry bulk wholesale stock and on-demand supply. On the similar time, finish customers can store for on a regular basis necessities with handy fee and supply choices.
Why we’re watching: Digital commerce in Africa usually overlooks the wants of small retailers, focusing totally on finish customers. Inalipa stands out as a result of it serves each micro-retailers and particular person consumers, providing a unified stock, working capital, and supply platform. By addressing the distinctive challenges confronted by small retailers, whereas nonetheless offering a seamless expertise for customers, Inalipa is bridging an important hole in Tanzania’s retail ecosystem. That’s why it’s firmly on our radar.
That’s all for right now. Count on our subsequent dispatch on Could seventh. Know a startup we should always function subsequent? Please nominate right here.