TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa, an event where selected start-up companies pitch their innovations to over 500 hundred audiences ranging from investors, developers, government officials awarded M-scan as Africa’s Most Promising Startup as the winner for the 2018 edition held in Lagos Nigeria.

M-scan, a Ugandan start-up that develops portable mobile ultrasound devices that are laptop, tablet and mobile phone-enabled was awarded a 25,000 USD equity free grand prize.

The startup emerged the winner by impressing the audience and judges with its scalability potential to make many other medical access devices affordable for Africa, where maternal and infant mortality is relatively high.

The event runner-up was Bettr, a virtual banking experience powered by smartphones and data. TechCrunch Startup battlefield Africa had fifteen African start-up companies from different African countries pitch their innovation on the day as they were shortlisted from hundreds of entries.

TechCrunch Start-up has been an effective event in Africa since it started its TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa in 2017 at Kenya. Lori Systems, winners of the event in Kenya, has significantly grown revenue, headcount and geographical reach since competing in the event. Hailing from Kenya, Lori Systems have built a logistics platform that is revolutionizing the cargo-transport value chain in Africa.  

Mike Butcher, Editor at Large, TechCrunch said “Africa’s tech ecosystems is really coming into its own as successful entrepreneurs scale up their businesses and achieve good exits and IPOs. The strength of the entries for this year’s Startup Battlefield Africa 2018  confirms that there is no shortage of creative inventors, makers, and entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Other startups that pitched at the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 were Apollo Agriculture, a Kenyan startup that helps farmers in emerging markets maximize profits, Sudpay a Togolese startup that specializes in Mobile and Ticketing solutions, Bankly a Nigerian startup focused on reaching the unbanked in Africa, in a “Recharge to Save” model and many more.

Emeka Afigbo, Facebook’s Head of Developer Programmes said: “at Facebook, nothing excites us more than supporting the work of diverse talent and young businesses, so we have been thrilled to see some of Africa’s innovative and disruptive startups tell their stories at Startup Battlefield 2018.” Facebook was the main sponsor TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa in 2018.

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