Podozi, Nigerian beauty and personal care e-commerce startup is among the group of African startup companies who won a place in the Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups accelerator programme. They have in the process managed to acquire US$125,000 in funding. The 500 Startups accelerator program was launched by Dave McClure, a veteran of Silicon Valley. The program will be running for only four months, during which thousand of applications are received by start-up hopefuls. Only 2% of the applicants will be selected.
The chosen start-ups will be put into different batches, depending on the industry they are in and Podozi, has been put in batch 16 which has a focus on fintech, e-health, vicetech, HR and sportstech. The start-up is backed by the Nairobi-based Savannah Fund, which also funded PayKind, and will join 52 other firms for the program. Other Start-ups that made the cut include Kenya’s CardPlanet – now PayKind – and Egypt’s ElWafeyat making it into batch 11, and South Africa’s SweepSouth and Ghana’s Kudobuzz making it into batch 14.
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