Ten innovative Southern African startups have been awarded financing through the Southern Africa Innovation Bridge Portal Fintech Challenge to advance their solutions, and help improve financial access for underserved communities.

The Southern Africa Innovation Bridge Portal is supported by the World Bank and serves to crowd-source new and impactful ways to use the latest innovations in fintech.

The Innovation Bridge Portal Entrepreneur Community is an initiative of the departments of Science and Innovation and Small Business Development, together with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

The initiative serves as a digital platform for innovation, collaboration, co-creation, knowledge-sharing and matchmaking among ecosystem actors in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, eSwatini and Lesotho.

The Fintech Challenge aims to identify and scale up low-cost and appropriate savings and de-risking products for the low- and middle-income market, as well as lending solutions for small- to medium-sized enterprises. It also aims to provide access to markets, business networks and investment opportunities for underserved entrepreneurs.

World Bank Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa country director Marie Francoise Marie-Nellie says the region’s most innovative and impactful fintech companies unveiled their solutions for enabling greater financial access to the poor, after an eight-week investment-readiness programme that included masterclasses and mentoring.

The ten Southern African startups were each awarded $5 000, or almost R100 000, to get their businesses to investment-ready status.

The training has helped the startups to better engage with investors and enhance their chances of successful capital raising.

The ten startups that received awards under the Fintech Challenge include mobile payments company Abela, employee benefits platform Bento Technologies, gamified financial platform Fintr, business simplification service Moya Money, short-term investment stockvel Sum1 Investments and smart contracts company Thumeza, all from South Africa.

Other startups from Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana include ecosystem digitisation company Chaperone, housing platform FundRoof, financial reports creator Ipachi Capital and microfinance institution Prime Capital.

World Bank confirms that the businesses have made notable traction since the Fintech Challenge and are ready to grow further with pre-seed and seed investors.