Barely 3 months ago, at yet another Startup Weekend Accra event, a new startup was born. This time, it was a crowdfunding service for startups in Africa. What a brilliant idea! It won the hearts of the judges, but now it has won more hearts, at the Apps4Africa challenge. SliceBiz has gone ahead to win a $10000 cash prize as a winner in the Apps4Africa Business Challenge. This didn’t come easy, they had to compete with other African startups to emerge as one of the 3 winners for this year’s challenge.
SliceBiz has always defined itself as a disruptive startup, and they seem up to the task. Slicebiz’s aim is to raise funding for startups, through the general public. This also helps middle class professionals, especially young Africans, to be able to invest in a startup. This will not only help create employment for entrepreneurs but it will be an investment for these professionals as well. This makes the supported companies put up their best since they would have to be receiving investments from individuals. This venture seems to promising for Africa since there is a boom of startups already.
The Apps4africa Business Challenge which began in 2009 seeks to support African startups that seem profitable, have a sustainable business model and a scalable business. These startups enter a yearly competition. The winners receive a cash prize that will go to support their businesses. As of today, Apps4Africa has supported 9 startups all over Africa, SliceBiz inclusive. Apps4Africa, a.k.a A4A has become one of the continent’s foremost and most recognised startup awards, one of its beneficiaries being Farmerline from Ghana.
slicebiz cofounders at the NYSE L-R Heather Cochran & William Edem Senyo
The two other teams which won a $10000 cash prize each are Prowork, from Nigeria and Ffene, from Uganda. Prowork is project collaboration/management website while Ffene makes business management easy by help you track payments, invoices, etc. everywhere, even from your phone.
It is great to see such amazing innovations from young entrepreneurial minds in Africa. This is just the beginning of greater things to come. Congratulations to all these teams from Techy Africa.
