Archive for category: Feature story

ACCRA, Ghana, 22 June 2022 – MEST, Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, has announced the appointment of Melissa Nsiah as its new Director of Portfolio.

Previously Program Manager for Stanford Seed West and South Africa, Melissa will be working closely with MEST Africa’s Founder, Jorn Lyseggen, to provide leadership and direction to the MEST portfolio companies, with a key focus on helping the companies with strategies around growth and scale. 

With an extensive background in operations, project management, user experience, and program design, Melissa brings real-world experience in leading businesses, building innovative and effective teams, developing systems, and business coaching. 

Commenting on the appointment, Founder Jorn Lyseggen stated, “Melissa is a unique combination of entrepreneur, executive, and business coach with an in-depth experience from doing business on the African continent as well as the US market. She is mission-driven and cares deeply about the growing tech ecosystem on the African continent. We are honoured to welcome Melissa to the MEST team.” 

Melissa is also a champion of sustainability and STEAM and spends the majority of her time outside of work fundraising for youth STEAM education and advocating for anti-pollution and green initiatives. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering with a special focus on the intersection between technology and society.

After thriving through the uncertain times of 2020, 2021 set us on a path to achieve greater heights. The year marked a time of realignment and deepening of our commitment to the African technology and startup ecosystem. We acknowledge and appreciate all our partners who continued on this journey with us and are grateful for the remarkable work that our various units and teams at MEST did to achieve the many milestones of this year.

Notable among them was the reopening and extension of applications for the 2022 Training Program. Regardless of the delays and the extension of the application process which saw over a thousand people apply from Ghana and Nigeria, we are excited to welcome 53 outstanding individuals into the 2022 MEST Africa Training Program.

Other flagship programs like the MEST Africa Challenge and MEST Africa Summit were also put on hold this year due to the pandemic. But this made way for us to engage and support even more entrepreneurs across the continent while continuing to support the growth of our portfolio companies.

Our portfolio companies have shown a lot of resilience and keep innovating throughout these uncertain times. We are very proud of all they have achieved this year and send a special shoutout to the following companies who achieved some major successes this year:

Complete Farmer, Leti Arts, Kweza, Tendo, Judy, BezoMoney, Shopa and Wiflix

The growth of our portfolio companies has also been supported by our amazing partners.

Other significant highlights for this year include:

• We continued to work and impact the ecosystem alongside partners such as Mastercard Foundation, UNICEF, GIZ, IFC, The European Union, Care International, Africa Development Bank, SANAD and Danida.
• We launched MEST Scale, a venture accelerator focused on enabling SMEs in Ghana to scale.
• In partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and leading innovation hubs in Ghana, we’ve expanded our program reach to Wa, Tamale, Takoradi, Kumasi, Bolgatanga, Cape Coast and Ho
• We had the opportunity to work alongside some ecosystem players on the Digilogic Africa, Smart Cities Innovation Programme, AFDB Business Development Services, and WeGrow Hackathon projects.
• We partnered with the French Chamber of Commerce Ghana to bring together innovative startups and leading corporate organizations to foster more corporate-startup partnerships.
• Our impact in the ecosystem led to a feature on CNN as one of the organizations contributing to Ghana’s rising tech scene.
• As a result of all the work, we have also welcomed a cohort of new entrepreneurs into our community for a lifetime of growth, support, and access.

As was earlier announced, I will be transitioning from the Managing Director position to become a Portfolio Advisor at MEST while I pursue a new fintech company. My 6+ years at MEST have been truly rewarding and have also influenced these next steps in my growth journey. I look forward to continuing to support our founder Jorn Lyseggen, the rest of the leadership team, and our entrepreneurs.

For the team at MEST who bring it all to life, one thing has stayed true; the passion to strive for and achieve the highest possible standards together. I appreciate you all.

Enjoy this holiday special from the MEST family. Happy holidays!

– Ashwin Ravichandran(Outgoing Managing Director, MEST Africa)

ACCRA, Ghana —  Five MEST Africa portfolio and alumni companies — Tendo, Shopa, GrowForMe, Curacel and Chekkit — have been named among 50 startups who will be receiving investment and support from Google’s Black Founders Fund.

The companies will be receiving up to $100,000 in funds, mentorship from Google experts, and Google platform credits as part of the investment.

The five selected MEST-affiliated companies are some of the most promising technology startups whose solutions are transforming retail, e-commerce, agriculture, insurance and e-health across the continent.

Tendo, one of MEST’s portfolio companies, enables social media users to sell online without investing any capital. The app allows resellers to browse through catalogues of products and gets as much information as possible. Resellers can then add their profit margins to the product and share on social media.

Shopa, another MEST portfolio company is a B2B e-commerce business that is digitising the informal retail supply chain in Ghana and beyond by connecting informal retailers to products and suppliers faster and ensuring better profits.

Chekkit is a blockchain technology company saving lives by protecting producers and shoppers from the harmful effects of counterfeit products. It was founded in 2018 by MEST alumnus Dare Odumade to offer consumer intelligence, anti-counterfeiting and provide manufacturers with a way to engage their consumers directly.

Curacel was founded by MEST alumnus Henry Mascot. It is an AI-powered platform that enables insurers to automate claims seamlessly and also track fraud, waste and abuse.

Grow For Me is a web based Agricultural crowdfunding platform that funds farmers to scale and grow more crops, using the income received from interested sponsors. The unique model is creating wealth and contributing to food stability particularly in the rural communities where mass urban migration is having a detrimental impact on the agricultural food chain. Grow for me was founded by MEST Africa alumnus Nana Opoku W. O. Agyeman-Prempeh.

The Black Founders Fund is a program by Google Startups which is supporting early-stage Black-founded startups on the African continent. It seeks to bridge the existing fundraising gap for Black startup founders in Africa’s fast-growing technology landscape. The program will allocate a non-dilutive $3 million fund across 50 investable startups in Africa. The startups also receive Google Ad Grants and Cloud credits, as well as support from experienced experts at Google.

MEST is an Africa-wide technology entrepreneurship training program, internal seed fund, and network of hubs offering incubation for technology startups in Africa. Our internal seed fund provides $50k to $250k in funding to help launch and scale early-stage companies. Since 2008, MEST has funded and provided incubation for over 80 technology startups that are focused on creating wealth and jobs on the continent.