MPost was founded in June, 2016 by Abdul Aziz Omar and Twahir Mohamed.

The startup developed patented technology that enables users to transform their phone into a unique mobile postal address and mobile postal box, is quickly expanding after securing 40,000 customers in its home market.

Across Africa, there are 440 million unaddressed people, while the global figure is four billion and this is the problem MPost is trying to address.

The startup’s platform enables the conversion of mobile numbers into official virtual addresses, which allows notifications to be sent to clients whenever they get mail through their postal addresses.

All potential clients have to do is register by dialling a USSD code or through the MPost mobile and web app, after which the system guides them through an identification process. A US$3 registration fee is paid, with the user obtaining their own virtual postal address.

Once a user registers for the service, they choose the most convenient post office (out of the 622 Post offices across Kenya) where they can receive their letters/documents/parcels.

Once a letter/parcel is received by the PCK, an SMS will be sent to the user, notifying them that they have received mail (letters/documents/parcels).

The user then has a choice of walking to the post office to collect the documents or ask that Posta delivers them to their house/office/different location at an extra fees. This service costs KES 300 per year.

When users receive mail at their chosen post office, the post office generates a unique QR-coded stamp and sends an SMS notification to the user, who can pick up their mail or have it couriered to their location at an additional cost.

Simple, but incredibly effective. MPost, which has been primarily self-funded but obtained some angel investment last year, has already obtained 40,000 users thanks to a partnership with the Postal Corporation of Kenya.

Over 22,000 mails and parcels have already been received through the platform, and the startup has already expanded to Uganda ahead of further launches in Rwanda, Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa.

“Uptake to date has been phenomenal, taking into consideration the fact all registrations to date have been with zero marketing budget,” Omar said

Trella is definitely one of the startups to keep tabs on in 2020. It is a platform that connects shippers to carriers and it was founded by Omar Hagrass in 2019.

Trella offers services and technology to empower drivers, improve their efficiency, boost their earnings and utilization as well as creating job opportunities.

Trella aims to reduce costs for shippers, introduce a transparent pricing structure and provide them with a more reliable source of carriers. All the while allowing them to track their shipments in real-time as well as report key insights on their transportation trends and performance.

With an interconnected network of carriers of all types, sizes and offerings alongside their intelligent zone-based dispatch, they avail supply to shippers on a superior service level to meet their timelines consistently.

Through a seamless user experience and a modern user interface, both shippers and carriers will have access to a transparent overview on pricing and payments, load movements and status updates as well as tracking and visibility.

Through intelligent matching, scheduled bookings and dynamic routing, Trella can optimize dispatch and limit dead hauls to improve trucking efficiency.

Also, as they improve container utilization and route efficiency for truckers and carriers, they will be able to provide shippers with competitive prices. This will effectively allow both carriers and shippers to improve their profitability further investing in and growing their businesses.

Trella offers dynamic and deeply analytical dashboards that help shippers get the greatest amount of insights from their loads. The startup claims to be customer-centric and obsessed about serving our shippers. With lower load pricing, higher reliability and improved quality and visibility.

Trella aims to disrupt the freight industry through a smooth user experience and a modern user interface. This will give both shippers and carriers access to a transparent overview on pricing, payments, load movements and status updates as well as tracking and visibility.

The Trella team believes that empowering carriers and intelligently moving freight will create unprecedented economic opportunities in the logistics space while allowing shippers to book reliable, affordable and high-quality loads.

Trella connects carriers to shippers via direct bookings, helping them improve their utilization and enhancing their truck efficiency.

The Egyptian trucking marketplace raised more than US$600,000 in a pre-seed funding round; selected for Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator; and concluded the year 2019 by acquiring local competitor Trukt and has since showed no sign of relenting.

According to them, they are taking growth “step-by-step”, and not making any hasty moves.

UjuziKilimo (Swahili: knowledge or experience) which was founded in Nairobi in 2015 by Brian Bosire, is an Agritech company that collects and analyzes data to provide actionable insights that inform the agriculture industry.

Poor soil quality leads to decreased crop yields and underutilization of farm lands in Africa.

The average output of cereal crops in Africa is 12,650 Hg/Ha vs 73,404 Hg/Ha in United States. Additionally, agriculture supplies can’t keep up with the increasing population demand, creating a food crisis.

One in four people are considered malnourished in Africa. Food costs account for 50 to 70 percent of total household expenses and this is the problem that Ujuzikilimo, a startup founded by in is trying to solve
UjuziKilimo has developed a sensors based soil testing kit to analyze soil quality and location of the farm, and send the values instantly to a database.

The database through an algorithm analyzes and sends appropriate recommendations on suitable seeds, soil treatment methods, water level required, fertilization for optimum crop production, additional relevant agricultural information, and connection of farmers with suppliers of the necessary farm inputs and the average pricing of the inputs- to the farmer’s phone via short messages.

Additional information such as weather updates, market availability, organic farming methods, and disease-monitoring updates among other relevant information is available for a low-cost monthly subscription fee.

The database provides weather updates and precision farming tips based on the information gathered from sensors that farmers insert into the ground to read the soil quality and pH values. The machine learning and data analytics platform is even faster than Wefarm, delivering answers in less than two minutes. The startup has been dubbed “Uber for farmers” by Forbes Africa.

In recognition of its impact, the startup has been recipient of ASME Foundation Hardware Innovation Challenge (Winner) and Current Finalist for Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation among others.

There are 500 million one-acre farmers around the world. Rainfall has become very unpredictable due to climate change and fuel for petrol pumps is expensive.

Futurepump is on a mission to design develop and manufacture robust solar irrigation products for small scale farmers.

The FuturePump solar irrigation pumps are both robust and portable. They offer smallholder farmers a cheaper, cleaner and more sustainable alternative to costly and polluting petrol or diesel pumps.

Irrigating crops leads to more reliable harvests and provides the opportunity to grow and sell produce out of season. This can bring huge economic benefits to the farmers, their families and the wider community.

Access to affordable irrigation is a major limit to farm productivity. In Africa, only around 5% of cultivated land is irrigated, compared to 41% in Asia.

FuturePump used an undisclosed Seed funding round to invest in solar power whereby Farmers make a one-off investment to buy a surface pump that can suck up to one liter per second of shallow water to irrigate surrounding crops.

The pump is made of three parts – PV panels that convert sunlight into electricity and drive the DC motor, a unit coupled to a flywheel that drives the pump, and a reciprocating piston pump.

According to Japheth, a farmer that has been a recipient of FuturePump solar irrigation pumps “I used to irrigate with buckets but I could not do much because the bucket capacity is very small. I tried a MoneyMaker pump, but it was so labor intensive that I ended up spending much money hiring people just to help me pump the water. I also tried petrol, but I would use $10 a day – this cost is too high. So, if I didn’t have the Futurepump, I think I wouldn’t be here now in the dry season because it is already too hot. But with the Futurepump now I know I will harvest something good.”

It is a clearly established fact that healthtech is one of the fastest growing sectors in Africa.

Across the continent, startups are using tech-based solutions to help tackle the challenges in delivering high-quality healthcare to rural and resource-deprived areas.

Below are some of the most successful and inventive African healthtech startups across the continent.

From treating addiction to pharmaceutical supply chain management, they’re creating a more accessible, efficient, and reliable healthcare system in Africa and beyond.

1. Vezeeta

Egyptian startup Vezeeta initially set out to build a better ambulance service for people in the Middle East and North Africa. But since their launch in 2011, the company has expanded to cover other a host of other healthcare needs.

From online bookings to clinic management software, they now touch every aspect of the patient experience, making it easier for people to find and access the best healthcare in their area.

Currently operating in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, they’ve helped over 2.5 million patients make more than 3 million bookings.

2. Appy Saúde

Appy Saúde is Angola’s leading healthcare database. It lets people find, rate, and get in contact with pharmacies, healthcare facilities, and GPs.

The app also provides patients with information about what health insurance certain providers accept.

Since their start in 2017, the app has collected information for each of Angola’s 18 provinces and been downloaded over 12,500 times.

They’re planning to roll out a new function that will allow patients to book appointments with providers through the app. They’ll also be exhibiting at Web Summit 2019 in Lisbon as part of the ALPHA startup programme.

3. TakeStep

This Egyptian healthtech startup uses mobile to help people struggling with addiction.

It’s a full stack platform designed to address addiction’s complexity. Not only do they help people quickly and discreetly access professional counselling, they stay engaged throughout the recovery process to prevent relapses.

Their platform works by “connecting all stakeholders… in the addiction recovery process” including patients, guardians, treatment facilities, and supervisors.

4. TenaCare

Founded by Dr. Wuleta Lemma, TenaCare is a digital health system that’s transforming healthcare in Ethiopia.

When Dr. Lemma returned to Ethiopia after obtaining degrees in medicine, epidemiology, and international health in the US, she found that the healthcare information systems in her home country were still analog and inaccurate.

This disjointed and out-of-date system made delivering high-quality healthcare a challenge, especially in remote areas of the country.

So she decided to design something better. TenaCare’s suite of applications was created in conjunction with Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative, and is intended to be entirely locally managed.

The system can operate online and offline, making it accessible in both urban and remote rural clinics.

5. Medsaf

Phony and low-quality pharmaceuticals are a common and dangerous problem in Africa, with 30% of available medicationson the continent estimated to be fake.

Often, these drugs are essential to treat life-threatening conditions like malaria and hepatitis. Lagos-based Nigerian startup Medsaf is setting out to tackle this healthcare crisis by establishing a safe and reliable supply chain for medication.

They buy medications directly from both foreign and local drug manufacturers and deliver them to hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics throughout Nigeria.

The startup, who exhibited at Collision in 2019, is also using its buying power to negotiate fair prices for patients. And while they’re currently only operating in Nigeria, they’re planning to expand first into West Africa, then worldwide.

Founded in 2009 and Headquartered in Accra with a satellite office in Nairobi, SyeComp is a Remote Sensing (RS) and GIS company for farmers and agribusinesses in Africa pioneering innovative data-driven tools, credit solutions, and climate-smart technologies using space technology.

The Agritech company is developing a complex geospatial survey and mapping system by using optical and radar remote sensing technologies, as well as imagery picked up by drones.

The overall product range includes farm mapping, localized weather forecasts, and even a mobile crediting solution called mFarmPay that generates a credit score for rural farmers from that data it collects.SyeComp is spearheading efforts in satellite-derived geodata enabled precision agriculture services in Africa.

As an Earth Observation Technology pioneer, the company strives to support smallholder African farmers and agribusinesses with localised digital solutions to create sustainable and profitable agrifood systems, smart sourcing ( traceability) solutions, project co-design, and outgrower management.

They bring extensive experience and professionalism to every project/assignment and customise our support to your individual business needs and concerns.

The staff and partner experts at SyeComp have been working in the technology and agrifood nexus for over a decade and have built extensive consulting experience with varied local and international development agencies.

They are speedily on the pulse of modern digitalisation in agriculture in Africa and have monitored its evolution to inform their own professional approaches to give customers an exceptional service that will last for years to come.

iProcure is the largest agricultural supply chain platform in rural Africa. The Nairobi-based startup provides a multifaceted market intelligence platform for supply chain management, monitoring sales prices in remote locations, and supporting built-in mobile payments.

Founded in 2013 by Nicole Galletta and Stefano Carcoforo, iProcure has raised about $1 million in venture capital.

The company also assists with warehousing, using “predictive algorithms [to] ensure that essential commodities are never in short supply,” as well as last-mile delivery.

On the other side of the financial coin, iProcure helps retailers identify geo-located purchasing patterns in real time, in turn helping them offer targeted loyalty programs and discounts to farmers.

In addition to complete procurement and last mile distribution services, they provide business intelligence and data-driven stock management across the supply chains. They deliver great value to both manufacturers and consumers.

Through real-time business intellience, iProcure provide an alternative distribution channel that ensures users product gets all the way to the end consumer.

They make it a point of duty to know who is buying, when and for how much; iProcure provides complete supply chain visibility.

Their storage facilities are strategically located to ensure extensive reach to the rural consumer. They have predictive algorithms in order to ensure that essential commodities are never in short supply.

Most importantly, from data-driven distribution to the last mile delivery, iProcure provides complete procurement and distribution solution for farm supply to partners that want to streamline their streamline their distribution and improve efficiency and customer service.

Apollo Agriculture is a technology based company based in Nairobi, Kenya that helps small sclae farmers to increase the potential of their farming processes and enhance profits. It was founded by Benjamin Njenga, Earl St Sauver and Eli Pollk in 2016.Since its inception in 2016, the Nairobi-based Apollo Agriculture has raised $1.6 million to help farmers maximize profits and minimize credit risks with machine learning, remote sensing, and mobile phones technologies.Apollo bundles everything a farmer needs; financing, farm inputs, advice, insurance and market access when possible.They make use of satellite data and machine learning to enable better credit decisions and automated operations to keep costs low and processes scalable.It combines the services of both FarmDrive and Farmcrowdy by assessing credit risk, while also delivering individualized information packages specific to the farmer’s location based on data picked up from satellites, soil, farmer behavior, and crop yields.A lot of what is being accomplished by these three financing startups sounds similar to what we observed happening in the Indonesian farming sector.Apollo is not relenting on its mission to help farmers transition to commercial farming by providing the products, services and financing they need to maximize their profits.

Survey54 is an on-demand survey platform founded by Stephan Eyeson in 2016 with a focus on emerging markets in Africa and the diaspora.

It is a platform that enables organizations, companies and governments to use the power of our audience to get answers to critical questions with the believe that data can help make decisions.

The startup has thousands of respondents across the continent who are ready to provide insights. Survey54 uses SMS and android enabled phones to reach their audience.

Stephan Eyeson came up with the idea of Survey54 when he was working at SurveyMonkey and he realized that there’s a massive value in using day-to-day research as a baseline for decision making and that virtually every idea or product can be tested.

At Survey54, clients can get surveys for pre-launch product idea or even name. when launched, conduct user testing to understand usage and so many other use cases throughout the product life cycle where research is needed to make qualitative decisions.

Usually, when it comed to Africa and other emerging countries, it is usually difficult to obtain the data and resources to conduct research, research activity is generally done offline rather than online.

Offline analysis is commonly carried out by agencies who charge a lot because it is too labour intensive.

Into this vacuum, Survey54 steps in to provide the means and data readily available to get the needed insights