These Are The Top 19 Startups From Kenya You Should Know!

: February 03, 2020

These Are The Top 19 Startups From Kenya You Should Know About!

 

 

Kenya has a rich startup ecosystem and often considered to be one of the main tech hub in Africa. There is a widespread growth of diverse startup companies, with a growing number of engaging international investors, a testament to their successful journey.

 

Here Is A List of The Top 19 Startups In Kenya:

 

1. Lori Systems:

A logistics coordination platform that seamlessly connects Cargo Owners to Transportation. Lori enables the logistics space to operate at an order of magnitude more efficiently than it does today.

 

Year Founded: 2016

Specialities: Internet, Logistics, Marketplace, Transportation, Supply Chain, Shipping, Cargo Delivery, Trucking

 

Total Funding: $36.2M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: Hillhouse Capital Group, Crystal Stream Capital, DST, EchoVC, Timon Capital and others.

 

Lori Systems was the winner of 2018, Innovation Award - East Africa Maritime Awards (EAMA). They were also 2018 Winner: Fastest Growing Company - Global Africa Business Awards (GABA). As well as 2017 Winner of TechCrunch Battlefield Africa.

 

 

2. M-Kopa:

A pay-as-you-go energy provider to off-grid homes, the company's mission is to upgrade lives by making high-quality solutions affordable to everyone. M-KOPA has pioneered and built one of the world's most advanced Pay-As-You-Go platforms to upgrade millions of lives in East Africa M-Kopa was launched commercially in 2012.

 

Year Founded: 2011

Specialities: Energy Solutions, Solar Power, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Technology, Energy Efficiency, Clean Tech, Technology, Payments, Utilities

 

Total Funding: $161.8M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Venture- Series Unknown

Investors: Stanbic Bank, CDC Group, FMO, LGT Venture Philanthropy, Triodos Investment Management, Norfund and others.

 

M-KOPA has been named to MIT Technology Review’s list of the 50 Smartest Companies of 2017. The company was also named a Top 100 Global Cleantech company in 2014. M-KOPA has connected more than 750,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to solar power, with over 500 new homes being added every day.

 

 

3. CarePay: 

A health technology enterprise with the ambition and ability to transform the healthcare sector through cloud based- and mobile technology. CarePay is the developer and administrator of the M-TIBA platform.

 

Year Founded: 2014

Specialities: Health Care, Digital Health, SaaS, Digital Payment, Mobile Apps, Data Collection, Financial Transaction, Insurers, Users, AI, ML

 

Total Funding: €40M ($45.2M), as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: ELMA Investments, PharmAccess Group and others.

 

CarePay's cloud-based platform is currently being installed at more than 1300 healthcare providers throughout Kenya, and through it people are able to transfer, receive and pay with health related funds and benefits on their mobile phone.

 

 

4. Powerhive: 

A leading microgrid solutions provider and developer whose proprietary technology platform and business model enables the development, financing, and management of bankable solar microgrids in emerging markets. Powerhive empowers communities with clean energy and connects them with opportunities for economic growth.

 

Year Founded: 2011

Specialities: Energy Solution, Energy Infrastructure, Solar Power, Grid Financing, Electricity Metering, Risk Monetization, Software, Smart Meter Automation, Data Analytics, Mobile Payments

 

Total Funding: $41.3M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Toyota Tsusho), Tao Capital, Prelude Ventures, Caterpillar Ventures, Total Energy Ventures and others.

 

Powerhive leverages its proprietary technology platform to develop and operate portfolios of renewable microgrids that supply affordable, reliable and productive electricity to off-grid communities in emerging markets.

 

 

5. Sendy: 

An end-to-end logistics solution enabling thousands of businesses to move any type of goods using any type of vehicle: motorcycle, pick-up, van, truck or trailer. Sendy's platform connects clients to drivers and vehicles for goods delivery.

 

Year Founded: 2015

Specialities: SaaS, Delivery, Services, Logistics, Supply Chain, Freight Delivery, Performance Metrics, E-Commerce, Food Delivery

 

Total Funding: $29M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: Atlantica Ventures, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Asia Africa Investment, Sunu Capital, Enza Capital, Vested World and others.

 

Sendy offers services for e-commerce, enterprise, and freight delivery for a client list that includes Unilever, DHL, Maersk,  Safaricom  and African online retailer Jumia.

 

 

6. Twiga Foods:  

A business-to-business marketplace platform that sources produce directly from farmers and delivers it to urban retailers. Twiga bridges gaps in food & market security to achieve an efficient, fair and transparent market. Source quality produce from farmers and deliver to vendors.

 

Year Founded: 2013

Specialities: Internet, E-Commerce, B2B, Retail, Grocery, Agriculture, Food Products

 

Total Funding: $36.25M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: Goldman Sachs, IFC, TLcom Capital, Creadev and others.

 

Twiga Foods serves around 3,000 outlets a day with produce through a network of 17,000 farmers and 8,000 vendors. Parties can coordinate goods exchanges via mobile app using M-Pesa mobile money for payment.

 

 

7. Copia Global:

A consumer goods catalog and delivery service for Base of the Pyramid consumers in the developing world. Copia Global brings all consumers a high-quality shopping service regardless of their income level, access to technology or location.

 

Year Founded: 2013

Specialities: Internet, E-Commerce, Marketplace, Shopping, Delivery Services, Consumer Goods

 

Total Funding: $33M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: LGT Lightstone, Perivoli Innovations, Endeavor Catalyst, ELEA and others.

 

Copia’s model is hinged on a 5,000-strong agent network comprising mainly of local, small shopkeepers who earn commissions by serving as “points of aggregation of orders and delivery distribution.”

 

 

8. WeFarm: 

A peer-to-peer knowledge sharing platform for smallholder farmers and is the world’s largest knowledge network and marketplace for small-scale farmers. Wefarm allows its users to share and access vital information, products and services without needing any access to the internet.

 

Year Founded: 2015

Specialities: AgTech, Farming, Internet, Marketplace, Digital Networking, AI, ML, Messaging, P2P, Crowdsourcing

 

Total Funding: $20.9M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: True Ventures, AgFunder, June Fund, LocalGlobe, ADV, Norrsken Foundation and others.

 

WeFarm today has around 1.9 million registered users, and its early moves into providing a marketplace — helping to put farmers in touch with local suppliers of goods and gear such as seed and fertilizers — generated $1 million in sales in its first eight months of operations.

 

 

9. AZA Finance:

A digital F/X platform that offers businesses a fast, easy and low-cost way to make payments to, from, & within frontier markets. AZA Finance is focused on using cutting-edge blockchain technology to increase efficiency across markets, It opens corridors for business payments and trade between Africa and the rest of the world.

 

Year Founded: 2013

Specialities: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Top Bitcoin, FinTech, Payments, SaaS, B2B, B2B2C, TransferZero, BFX, Digital Currency

 

Total Funding: $30M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Debt Financing

Investors: Development Bank of Southern Africa, Greycroft Partners, Draper Associates and others.

 

AZA Finance's API also enables international remittance companies to send white-label payments to dozens of bank networks and mobile money operators across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, and the DRC.

 

 

10. Cellulant: 

A leading Pan-African technology company providing digital payment solution for every sector; providing a reliable, realtime link to all things digital payments across Africa. Cellulant powers and organises Africa's Marketplace by connecting buyers, sellers and other critical stakeholders with an underlying payments solution that enables them to make and receive payments.

 

Year Founded: 2004

Specialities: FinTech, Payments, Digital Payments, E-Commerce, Marketplace, BlockChain, Merchant Solution, APIs, Integration

 

Total Funding: $54.5M, as of Feb 04, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series C

Investors: The Rise Fund, Endeavor Catalyst, Satya Capital, Velocity Capital, Progression Africa and others.

 

Cellulant’s payments platform spans 1 in 10 Africans, with 2.5 million doing monthly transactions. Cellulant’s coverage extends to 50% of banks in Africa and 17 million unbanked farmers in Africa.

 

 

11. Paygo Energy: 

A revolutionary smart metering solution and distribution system that enables consumers to access clean and efficient fuel at a price point that is within their daily energy budget. PayGo Energy is digitising the supply chain to better connect you with your customers.

 

Year Founded: 2015

Specialities: SaaS, Smart Metering Solution, Distribution System, Meter Technology, LPG Distribution, Supply Chain, Energy Solution, Hardware, Customer Insights, Consumption Tracking, Digital Distribution, Reticulated Systems

 

Total Funding: $8.4M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series Unknown

Investors: Novastar Ventures, Energy Access Ventures, Village Capital, Global Innovation Fund and others.

 

The PayGo platform enables retailers to track consumption and replace cylinders before the gas ever runs out; converting a new customer into a potential customer for life. Its software platform monitors gas levels remotely and connects each customer to the virtual gas grid, ensuring they always have access to clean, affordable, energy for cooking.

 

 

12. Lendable Marketplace:

A fintech startup bridging the gap between institutional debt investors and high growth alternative lenders in Africa. Lendable Marketplace's services includes non-banking, asset-backed finance providers operating in microfinance, asset financing, asset leasing and a range of pay-as-you-go services.

 

Year Founded: 2014

Specialities: FinTech, Financial Services, Receivable Financing, Lending, Investments, Financial Transactions, Alternative Financing, Data Science, Data Protections, Risk Analytics

 

Total Funding: $9M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: KawiSafi Ventures, Omidyar Network, Fenway Summer Ventures, Ceniarth and others.

 

Lendable Marketplace is bringing scale, discipline, and analytics to frontier debt investing. The company's platform reduces the time, resources and frictional costs you would incur in getting the capital you need.

 

 

13. Angaza: 

A technology platform that offers a flexible solution for product distributors to catalyze unprecedented growth in emerging markets. Angaza enables businesses to provide affordable life-changing products to people in emerging markets.

 

Year Founded: 2010

Specialities: SaaS, Clean Energy, Solar Panel, Pay-As-You-Go, FinTech, Payments, IoT, Mobile Payments, B2B, Product Distributors, Manufacturing

 

Total Funding: $16M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: Salesforce Ventures, Emerson Collective, The Social Entrepreneurs Fund and others.

 

Angaza's technology platform allows manufacturers and distributors to make energy products affordable to 1 billion off-grid consumers. The company's technology platform is your solution to unlock new markets and sell more products — from solar lighting systems to clean cookstoves.

 

 

14. Kopo Kopo:

A technology company that leverages payment data to digitize and extend credit to SMEs. Kopo Kopo's software powers the largest independent merchant network in the mobile money industry.

 

Year Founded: 2012

Specialities: FinTech, Financial Services, Payments, SaaS, Merchant Cash Advances, Payment Aggregation, SMEs, BI, Merchant Solutions

 

Total Funding: $5.6M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: First Light Ventures, Village Capital, Javelin Venture Partners, Accion Venture Lab, Vinod Khosla’s Impact Fund and others.

 

Kopo Kopo's software-as-a-service enables the 30 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets to accept, process, and manage mobile money payments (e.g. Safaricom M-Pesa, Airtel Money).

 

 

15. Africa's Talking: 

A mobile solutions firm integrating reliable two-way SMS, voice, and USSD functionality across mobile providers in Africa. Africa's Talking helps developers and businesses bring their ideas to life through easy-to-use APIs.

 

Year Founded: 2010

Specialities: Mobile Solutions, SMS, Airtime, USSD, Voice, Payments, IoT, APIs

 

Total Funding: $8.6M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: IFC Venture Capital, Orange Digital Ventures, Social Capital, former Facebook exec Chamath Palihapitiya and others.

 

Africa’s Talking has a network of 20,000 software developers and 1000 clients  including fintech lending startup Tala; solar power financier and retailer M-Kopa; and financial services giant Ecobank.

 

 

16. Komaza:

A distributed forestry company that partners with smallholder farmers in Kenya to plant trees for sale as sustainable wood products. Komaza is making smallholder farmers the future of African forestry.

 

Year Founded: 2006

Specialities: Forestry, Social Enterprise, Agriculture, Wood Products, Natural Resources, Green Energy, AgTech, Plantations

 

Total Funding: $9.9M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series A

Investors: Novastar Ventures, Mulago Foundation, HOOGE Raedi Social Venture, Conservational International and others.

 

Komaza's powerful approach combines technology, training, and service to create a new sustainable wood supply for Africa at an 80% cost disruption over traditional plantations. The has planted over 4 million trees with 20,000 farmers, making us one of East Africa's largest commercial tree planter.

 

 

17. Mobius Motors:

A creator of the first cars specifically designed and manufactured for the African market. Mobius designs, manufactures and sells vehicles built specifically for the African mass market.

 

Year Founded: 2011

Specialities: Automotive, Automobiles, Transportation, Designing, Manufacturing, Vehicles

 

Total Funding: $11M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Debt Financing

Investors: OPIC - Overseas Private Investment Corporation, PanAfrican Investment Co.

 

Mobius has developed vehicles uniquely suited to the demands of the Kenyan consumer. The new Mobius II has been ruggedised for challenging rural road terrain and simplified to reduce unnecessary cost and weight. 

 

 

18. Penda Health: 

An award-winning health tech startup that is transforming healthcare in East Africa. Penda Health is building a chain of outpatient health clinics that offer evidence-based medical care and unparalleled member experience at surprisingly affordable rates.

 

Year Founded: 2012

Specialities: Healthcare, Digital Health, Health Tech, Primary Healthcare, Social Enterprise, Medical Care, Internet, Mobile Apps

 

Penda is ranked the Best Health Care Firm to work for in Kenya and the #26 Best company to work in Kenya.

 

 

19. PowerGen Renewable Energy:

A micro-grid developer, implementer, and operator in East Africa, reshaping the prevailing rural electrification model in the region. PowerGen is creating an African energy system that utilizes clean, renewable energy and smarter grids to deliver power to all.

 

Year Founded: 2011

Specialities: Energy Solution, Solar Power, Renewable Energies, Energy Tech, Solar Street Lighting, Commercial Solar, Clean Energy

 

Total Funding: $4.5M, as of Feb 03, 2020

Latest Funding Type: Series B

Investors: REPP, Shell’s New Energies business, Omidyar Network, Acumen, EDFI ElectriFI, Sumitomo Corporation, DOB Equity and others.

 

PowerGen is poised to build on its market-leading position and continue to blaze a trail towards creating a private utility sector in East Africa. The company's objective is to connect 500m people to power for the first time while building the energy system of the future in Africa.

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