Visa Announces 22 Tech Startups for its Fourth Africa Fintech Accelerator, with Two Specializing in Stablecoin Infrastructure Development
In a significant move to boost financial inclusion and digital transformation across Africa, VISA has announced the selection of 22 innovative startups for its 4th Africa Fintech Accelerator Program. The program, which is based in Botswana, aims to enable unified trading across African stock exchanges and has supported 64 startups across multiple cohorts.
One of the chosen startups is mystocks.africa, a platform that enables unified trading across African stock exchanges, based in Botswana itself. Another notable participant is MaishaPay from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, offering a unified B2B platform for payroll, digital payments, and POS services.
From Zimbabwe, BigDot.ai is on board, helping Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) adopt cashless workflows. PressPayNg, based in Nigeria, is a fintech for education providing banking, financing, savings, and insurance tailored to students.
In the realm of healthcare, Vittas, also based in Nigeria, offers a financial and payment toolset tailored for healthcare providers. Flend from Egypt is a tech-driven non-bank finance platform offering real-time SME lending solutions. MNZL from Egypt offers asset-backed lending using home or auto equity.
Kenya has a strong representation with startups like Sevi, which streamlines B2B payments and financing for small retailers in offline value chains, and Muda, which enables stablecoin liquidity and cross-border asset exchange.
Woliz from Morocco transforms nano-stores into digital hubs, while ShopOkoa is an AI-driven credit, payment, savings, and cashflow analytics platform for micro-businesses. Motito, based in Botswana, is an asset-financing marketplace offering alternative payment plans for essential goods.
ChatCash from Uganda offers AI-powered, multilingual payments and sales via messaging apps, and IPT Africa from Mauritius provides real-time FX visibility, same-day bulk payments, and payroll processing.
OKO Finance Ltd, based in Ivory Coast, offers climate insurance via automated weather-indexed payouts for agribusiness. Lemonade Payments from Kenya deploys privacy-first, white-label blockchain wallets for merchants.
Startbutton, based in Nigeria, is a merchant-of-record platform enabling compliant multi-currency payments across borders. Hsabati from Morocco collects operational data to help MSMEs secure financing.
Zazu, based in South Africa, is a neobank offering business accounts, expense tracking, invoicing, and bookkeeping. Twiva from Kenya is a social commerce platform integrating influencer-driven sales.
The deadline for applications for Cohort 4 of the Africa VISA Fintech Accelerator Program is March 15, 2025. Notably, no startup from Ghana was explicitly mentioned as a participant in Cohort 3 of the program, and the name of the startup from Ghana that used blockchain technology is not explicitly mentioned in the available search results.
VISA continues to extend critical support to African fintech startups through training, access to its global network, sandbox tools, and investor exposure. The program has generated over $3 million in additional revenue during the program, and alumni of the program have raised more than $55 million in follow-on funding. VISA's commitment to Africa includes investing $1 billion by 2027.
This 12-week virtual program is a testament to VISA's commitment to fostering innovation and digital transformation in Africa's fintech sector. These startups, armed with the support and resources provided by VISA, are poised to revolutionise the financial landscape in their respective countries and beyond.
