The LHoFT Foundation, strongly believes that financial technology is crucial to advancing financial inclusion, empowering groups that have been left behind by the traditional financial system. Whether it’s financing for rural farmers, point of sale technology for underbanked merchants, or specialized insurance products, the positive impact being driven by entrepreneurship is improving lives around the world. As such, Financial Inclusion is a key focus of the LHoFT Foundation.
In the third edition of CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa Developed by the LHoFT Foundation, the program targets companies focusing on financial inclusion in Africa, aiming to build bridges between Africa and Europe, highlighting their initiatives and very much aligned with the sustainability goals of Luxembourg’s finance center. In keeping with the times, and with public health guidelines, this edition will be entirely digital.
Through the program, selected companies will benefit from intensive mentoring, coaching, peer-to-peer learning and dedicated workshops. This will be through various sessions which include; business model mapping, investment readiness, funding, and capital raising, social impact, scaling strategy, building teams, operational management, advisory meetings with investors, and pitch development.
CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa will run from 19 to 28 May. In addition to the startups, the program will feature investors from several financial outlets. The outlets include Bamboo Partners, ZedCrest Capital, AfricInvest, and Sherpa Africa Partners. The investors will work with the startups throughout the program as part of the boot camp.
The participating startups will conclude the program by staging a pitching event. The event will take place on 27 May and is open to the public. You can register to attend the pitching event here.
The following 14 have been selected to participate in the 2021 edition of Catapult: Inclusion Africa:
Emata – Kampala, Uganda
Emata is disrupting the $65bn agricultural financing opportunity in Africa. The company digitizes farmers’ cooperatives and gives farmers access to digital and affordable financial products.
Moja Bank – Abidjan, Ivory Coast
We provide a digital payment App and a contactless card which is used by consumers to facilitate everyday payment in emerging markets. Consumers in the US use the App to manage their finances, and send money to their families back home.
AWABAH – Lagos, Nigeria
We provide access to retirement savings for Africa’s unbanked and underbanked population. We are improving the customer experience when interacting with pensions by merging financial literacy with easy-to-use technology.
Mosabi – Freetown, Sierra Leone
Mosabi links fintech and edtech with embedded, gamified upskilling for Africa’s financial products and platforms. This helps underserved citizens improve decisions and behaviors on their businesses and money. We harness data insights from user-profiles and journeys, to match them to best fit across a marketplace of digital financial services.
Mipango – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Mipango is a personal finance mobile application that enables users to manage their income, expenses, savings, financial targets, help and offerings. Mipango app uses artificial intelligence to guide users to better financial management and financial deals towards attaining financial freedom.
Igugu Global – Lagos, Nigeria
Igugu Global is accelerating the flow of capital to Africa’s US$1.5 trillion sustainable infrastructure gap. We are solving the problem of fragmentation in financial markets by providing ESG mapping, structuring and due diligence for green building, transport and energy portfolios.
Chromepay – Tel Aviv, Israel
Chromepay provides merchants and vendors with an affordable way to run all financial aspects of their business without using a bank or POS system. Our platform allows each merchant to manage products and generate invoices embedded in a unique QR code that can be scanned by customers to instantly pay for goods and services.
Nokwary Technologies – Accra, Ghana
We are excited about the potential of AI in the financial space, and its capacity to promote financial inclusion. Voice User Interface systems, for instance, enable people who cannot see, as well as people who cannot read and write, to interact with banking apps and systems through spoken commands.
Kotani Pay – Nairobi, Kenya
Kotani Pay is a technology stack that enables Blockchain protocols, dApps, and Blockchain FinTech companies to integrate seamlessly into local payment channels providing them with a reliable on-ramp and off-ramp service to reach a wider customer base in Africa.
Juakali – Paris, France
At Juakali, we simplify financial institutions’ lives by eliminating paperwork & automating valueless tasks, so that employees can make the most of their time at work and companies boost their productivity.
RePay.Africa – Nairobi, Kenya
RePay Africa’s API driven platform serves as an electronic alternative to cash, cheques & banks for the un-banked Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa-wide payment & transfer platform that supports online money transfers and bill payments to merchants.
Crop2Cash – Ibadan, Nigeria
Banks and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) find agricultural financing risky, which has created a $330 billion funding gap in agriculture globally. With our tools, they can provide this finance with a high level of assurance that it would be efficiently used by the farmers.
Asilimia France – Paris, France
Asilimia is an android application that allows informal traders in Africa to create a formal business account within their personal mobile money account. With Asilimia, all their future B2B transactions will be categorized as business transactions even though initiated from their personal mobile money account, saving 90% of their mobile money transaction fees.
Vooli Insurtech – Nairobi, Kenya
Vooli is a client-centric, technology-driven, disruptive insurtech, that offers on-demand general insurance through its app and website. Vooli bills users based on the duration they need insurance e.g. annually or semi-annually, and also seamlessly.
