Author: Founder Africa
Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and Austin, Texas, Reliance Health began operations in Nigeria in 2015 as a telemedicine-focused startup, Kangpe, founded by Femi Kuti, Opeyemi Olumekun, and Matthew Mayaki. After operating the company for a year, they switched to Reliance after learning how early the market was and the systemic follow-up gaps and processes that were present. Founded in 2016, Reliance Health uses technology to make healthcare accessible and affordable. Reliance Health provides cutting-edge healthcare solutions that address the demands of growing countries with an integrated strategy that includes inexpensive health insurance, telemedicine, and a combination of partner and own…
March 8th marks International Women’s Day (IWD 2023) and in honor of this, we are celebrating the amazing, bold, and fearless female founders who are shaping the future of Africa, serving as mentors to millions of women and youths. We decided to seek out and celebrate the contributions and successes of women challenging the status quo. From tech to beauty and finance, we’re sharing some of the most extraordinary female founders and the incredible work they do. 1. Damilola Olokesusi, founder of Shuttlers (Nigeria) Shuttlers is Nigeria’s leading scheduled ride-sharing platform that allows professionals to access efficient shared transportation…
Ibukun Tunde-Oni is a medical doctor working at the intersection of healthcare, business, and technology. After experiencing the avoidable deaths of two close relatives and nearly losing his life, Ibukun Tunde-Oni founded Eight Medical. Nicknamed/Dubbed “911 for Africa” – EightMedical is a platform that connects emergency medical responders (resources- people, places (hospitals), data, and vehicles )ambulances ) to users in need in 10 minutes or less. It is powered by a network of pre-hospital care professionals that provide urgent and emergency care when it matters most. In a chat with Founder Africa, Founder and CEO of EightMedical, Ibukun Tunde-Oni spoke…
Upon graduation, Timbo Drayson joined Google where he spent seven years working in product management and marketing. Highlights of his time at Google include the launch of Google Maps across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and taking Chromecast from idea to launch, filing seven patents along the way. In 2014, Timbo took a sabbatical from Google and used this time to travel across East and West Africa. While traveling across Africa in 2014, Timbo discovered that Google Maps did not work perfectly in Africa. With this realization, he built OkHi in Kenya to provide address verification services for…
Entrepreneurs say that the biggest challenge they face when starting a business is getting adequate funding. Traditional bank loans for small businesses have historically been tough to obtain, but recent market trends are making it even more difficult for new startups to get the funding they need. Startup accelerators have come to fill the void and taken up the challenge of identifying entrepreneurial companies in their early stages, mentoring, and offering the required seed funding and business development to make them profitable. African startups are increasingly getting accepted into accelerators and incubators around the world, opening them up to new…
After witnessing pervasive product stockouts at small retail stores while living in Egypt, Daniel Yu founded Wasoko (formerly Sokowatch). Originally from California, Daniel Yu always had an interest in Technology and International Business. He attended the University of Chicago to study International Studies and Linguistics because he wanted to fulfill his desire to travel around the world and learn new languages. His academic program led him to Egypt, where he spent several months studying Arabic and Egyptian culture. It was also during this time that he would come up with the business idea that became Sokowatch. The concept was simple:…
Co-founder of SeamlessHR, Dr. Emmanuel Okeleji used to sit in for board meetings alongside his father as an eight-year-old child. The board meetings, despite their informal structure, were his earliest introduction to the idea of entrepreneurship. However, he went into Medicine and graduated from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife. By the end of medical school, Emmanuel Okeleji had gone through a Goldman Sachs investment banking internship and kicked off an incorporated software development company alongside his current co-founder, Deji Lana. They built a software tool for cooperatives which is still in use today. In 2012, Emmanuel Okeleji started Insidify…
Early Days The journey to building Amitruck, a successful Kenyan logistics start-up started with one of the founders doubling as a truck driver while schooling abroad. Mark Mwangi had to drive a truck at night making deliveries from London’s Heathrow Airport to pay his Master’s tuition fees. He explained the importance of the experience “Having driven a truck myself, I know what a really nice, automated trucking system looks like. I could see how much room there is to improve efficiency and the way we do things in Africa.” Mark knew that experience was a learning curve but he…
In 2015, Tosin Eniolorunda, the Founder and CEO of TeamApt resigned from his job at Interswitch and set out on the journey of becoming an entrepreneur. According to him, this decision was fueled by the increased desire to make a significant impact in his life and that of others. TeamApt was eventually launched in November 2015. The startup is focused on building digital solutions and payment infrastructure for individuals, banks, and businesses in Africa and other emerging markets. TeamApt Inc. started out by helping partner banks optimize their core bank back-office operations. By 2017, the company was already servicing 26…
Tuteria is an ed-tech startup that was launched in 2015 by Godwin Benson and Abiola Oyeniyi. In 2005, Godwin Benson, a teenager in SS1 was hired to tutor a child who was struggling with maths, yet he did not get paid for his services. That experience sparked something in him and he decided to do something to ensure prompt and seamless payment for tutorial services. However, it wasn’t until 9 years later that Tuteria was launched as he began building the Tuteria platform in November 2014. In his words: “As of 2005, Tuteria was just an idea in my…
