Village Capital launched the Village Capital Fintech Africa 2018 program in collaboration with PayPal. In an official communication on their website, the venture capital firm is seeking African startups in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
Applications to the program opened last week on October 24, 2017 and will close on Friday, November 24, 2017. Click here to apply.
Specifically, the program is looking for startups that address insurtech, pensions and savings, cooperative finance, and financial literacy; leverage data for credit scoring and consumer insights; and apply fintech to our other sectors of interest: agriculture, energy, education, and health.
The cohort will consist of 10-12 early-stage fintech startups that will go through a three-month investment-readiness program, early next year.
The startups will work through Village Capital's curriculum and engage with potential customers, strategic partners, mentors, investors, sector experts, and PayPal employees.
At the end of the program, an offer of USD$50,000 investments will be awarded to the top two startups in the cohort, as selected by their peers. Details on the Village Capital peer-selected investment process can be found here.
Village Capital has previously partnered with PayPal for the past three years to support entrepreneurs around the world that are working on improving financial health.
The partnership - that has seen PayPal employees get involved as mentors since 2014 - was mainly focused on the US, Latin America, and India.
From this program, over 70 businesses have gone on to serve more than 31,000 companies and raise more than $28 million in investment. PayPal has funded four of these programs, including a program in India in 2015 and programs in the US, Mexico, and India in 2016.
Earlier this year, Village Capital also ran a similar program called Fintech Africa 2017 in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation the DOEN Foundation. Piggybank.ng and Olivine Technology each received US$100,000 Investment at the end of the program after emerging the winners.