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Fostering authentic African innovation

Fostering authentic African innovation

MEST supports early-stage software entrepreneurs, committed to building solutions that address the continent’s most pertinent challenges, while creating wealth and employment.

Our internal seed fund invests between  $50k to $250k+ in funding to help launch and scale early-stage companies. In addition to funding, MEST offers a 18 to 24-month incubation period and access to a robust global tech community.

Businesses We Support

  • Visionary African founders
  • Scalable software solutions
  • Sector agnostic

How We Support

  • Access to capital
  • Business development
  • Leadership Coaching

Our Portfolio Companies

MEST has invested in over 80 early-stage African software companies, in industries ranging from e-commerce, agtech, fintech, health tech, edutech, AI, and more.

List of Portfolios

Features

Eric Nsarkoh joins MEST Africa as a Portfolio Advisor

MEST Africa, a pan-African training program, incubator, and seed fund for African entrepreneurs, has announced the appointment of Eric Nsarkoh as a Portfolio Advisor, focused on technology product development. Eric brings a wealth of experience and expertise in Africa’s technology space to the role and will help to strengthen and scale MEST’s portfolio of startups across the continent.

Smile Identity Acquires Inclusive Innovations to Expand its Reach in Africa

MEST Portfolio Company, Smile Identity, has acquired Inclusive Innovations, the parent company of Appruve that was founded by MEST alumnus Paul Damalie. This strategic acquisition will expand Smile Identity’s footprint across Africa and solidify its position as the continent’s leading identity verification and digital KYC provider.

Jobs Without Borders — The African Startup Strengthening the Global Language of Coding

CodeLn is helping global & local tech companies seamlessly find and recruit African programmers, assuring quality through a system of consistent testing. Having built a model that was welcomed by both the entrepreneur and tech ecosystems, the forced closure of multiple markets in Africa amidst the pandemic took CodeLn pan-African overnight with representatives now in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria.

Agro Innova – Leading a new dawn of Agricultural Innovation

With a background in technology and a passion for agriculture,Moses Mallagha, CEO of Agro Innova, is pioneering the way we think about farming.
His innovative agritech startup uses technology to improve the lives of farmers in developing countries by using advanced farm data analytics and farming intelligence systems to help farmers maximise yields and profits.

Local streaming services have edge over global counterparts

Streaming services, by nature, are disruptors. Their presence has already had a significant impact on movie theatres, and terrestrial, and cable television markets internationally, and now local streaming services like Wiflix are staking their claim, country by country, across the African continent. Read how Wiflix is doing this across the African continent.

Outcomes

$28m

Invested

80+

Companies funded

18

Countries reached

Success Stories

The training has been invaluable in preparing me for the ups and downs of the startup world. Out of all modules, the Social Enterprise module was something I was personally passionate about, I enjoyed it!

Chukwuemeka Ndukwe, Co-Founder of CoFundie

My favorite part of the MEST Training Program was getting to meeting new people from diverse cultures & professional backgrounds. The ideation & design sprints too!

Favour Barde, Co-Founder of Massira

Our involvement in MEST Express exposed us to best practices in the tech industry. We had access to world-class experts in all areas of company building. At the end of the program, we had a clearer vision and a solid plan to get there, – Paul Eshun, CEO of Bosea and Credify

Case Study: custom accelerator program for African fintech startups

In September 2018, MEST partnered with French multinational bank Société Générale (SocGen) and SystemicLogic to launch a month-long accelerator program designed to take promising startups in the informal sector to the next level and offer potential partnerships with the bank.

Learn more about the MEST portfolio

Interested in partnering with MEST? Are you an investor who wants to learn more about our portfolio?

Contact our team to explore opportunities via portfolioteam@meltwater.org

Ashwin Ravichandran

Managing Director
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Download Case Study

Download Case Study

Download Case Study