Africa’s innovation goes way beyond the success of Kenya’s mobile money and the M-Pesa. In recent times, Ghana has launched Africa into the startup spotlight with successes in both mobile and web apps for consumers and businesses across the world.
Africa is undergoing a technology renaissance and most importantly there is no shortage of capacity to build great web and mobile apps that can compete on a global scale.
African innovative startups are not only making a huge impact on the continent, but getting recognition across the world. The likes of Leti Arts (one of the best video games companies in Africa ) and Dropifi from Ghana have been featured on CNN, BBC, Forbes, Mashable, TechCrunch and Huffington Post.
With the right financing, entrepreneurs will continue to put Africa on the global map of technological innovation. Y Combinator-type organizations including MEST (Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology) are supporting the dreams of passionate entrepreneurs in Ghana.
These are 15 of the hottest and most promising startups in Ghana you should watch out for.
1. MPower Payments
MPower is a payment service that works with digital wallets or bank account to offer a convenient payment experience. The mPower Digital Wallet offers the safety and convenience of online and mobile payments with only a mobile number and password. MPower Payment solutions also allow businesses to accept payments securely and conveniently.
MPower supports all popular payment types inlcuding Bank Debit Cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), Mobile Money, Internet Banking/Direct Deposit, SpeedBanking Cash Vouchers and more.
MPower is built and managed by SMSGH and Encodev Labs.
2. Adsbrook
AdsBrook is an African focused digital advertising company. AdsBrook provides a network of channels for advertisers to run integrated campaigns. The company’s ad platform is modelled after Google AdSense and AdMob. Users have access to a greater number of content publishers on both mobile and web channels.
3. Nandimobile
Nandimobile is a multi-service platform for businesses to communicate with their customers. Their products include Gripeline, Infoline and a directory. Gripeline allows businesses to respond to customer complaints via SMS, while Infoline is a platform to run SMS-based marketing campaigns.
Nandimobile’s objective is to leverage the high global mobile penetration rates to create mobile customer service technology that enables businesses to connect to their customers through their mobile phones and easily engage, inform and manage their customer relationships.
4. FastCashier
FastCashier organizes business finances in one place. Businesses can manage their money, send unlimited invoices, import from your bank, and always be ready for taxes. It is a cross-platform mobile and PC app for accountability and payment.
The FastCashier Wallet also allows business or consumer with an email address to securely and conveniently send and receive payments online.
5. GetFeatured
Getfeatured provides information on Jobs, Housing, Automobiles, & Businesses in Ghana. Encodev Labs, the company behind GetFeatured is focused on extending services throughout Africa.
6. Ahonya
Ahonya is a eCommerce site currently available in Ghana only, that allows consumers to shop online for genuine electronics. Ahonya wants to take the hassle out of shopping for electronics in Ghana. Ahonya is a twi (Ghanaian language) word for “wealth” or “affluence”.
Ahonya is supported by Savannah Fund in Kenya.
7. Dropifi
Dropifi is an intelligent replacement for mail-tos and dumb contact forms. Dropifi seeks to clear out the era of long and scary contact forms that deny businesses of valuable feedback and leads, whiles delivering business insight and a spam-free experience to customer engagement.
Dropifi today has over 8,000 clients in more than 30 countries. Dropifi is a 500 Startups company.
8. RetailTower
RetailTower is a simple way to list your online store on the popular comparison shopping engines. The app integrates with Shopify, BigCommerce and Magento. RetailTower helps online merchants promote their products and drive traffic through leading comparison shopping engines.
The company has registered over 11,000 online retailers. RetailTower is a Preferred Solutions Provider for Amazon product Ads.
9. Saya
Saya brings rich messaging to billions of low-end feature phones and smartphones in emerging markets. Unlike common chat applications, Saya works on low-end phones, enabling advanced functionality such as Facebook chat, group discussions, location-based chat, and exchange of multi-media.
It works across the iOS, Android, Blackberry and Java platforms.
10. Farmerline
Farmerline is a mobile and web-based system that provides farmers and investors with relevant agro industry content to improve productivity and increase income.
Input dealers and traders pay for more efficient communication channels to farmers and farmers pay for information packages and services. Farmerline reaches all phones and offers both SMS and voice services.
12. nkyea
Nkyea build apps that help you to learn African languages on your iPhone or Android phone. Nkyea Twi (Ghanaian language) Phrasebook for iOS 7 is now live on the App Store.
You can learn over 3600 phrases contained in 23 in-depth topics to help you build a broad Twi vocabulary.
13. BoxBuzz
BoxBuzz is an alert system which sends text messages to the mobile phones of owners of Post Office Box addresses whenever they receive a letter in their boxes. BoxBuzz users no more travel across town to open empty boxes because they are expecting letters or parcels.
BoxBuzz can also be used to manage Pigeon Holes in offices, schools and apartments; in parcel deliveries at Bus Terminals and for business parcel deliveries.
BoxxBuzz was launched at DEMO Africa 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. DEMO Africa is one of the flagship initiatives of US-backed LIONS@frica and aims to connect African startups to the global ecosystem.
14. mPawa
mPawa is a job matching service. mPawa helps employers to access a large pool of blue collar workers. It also helps blue collar (labour-intensive) workers to find jobs using their mobile phone.
The app connects employers to blue collar workers such as plumbers, mechanics, electricians and construction staff.
15. FreelancePro.me
FreelancePro.me automatically organizes your reviews, recommendations, job histories and sample works from your multiple job sites. It then aggregates relevant jobs that match your skill sets and preferences from your multiple job sites onto one platform.
FreelancePro allows you to easily share your professional reputation profile page with prospective clients.
You are welcome to add other promising startups in Ghana that did not make our top 15 in the comment box below.
2 comments
I can’t help but notice that we vaguely presented in this article, startups as being tech startups only. There is obviously a much more prolific traditional startup culture present in Ghana notably in the fashion and food industries. I do emphasize the term start up and not making reference to simple small scale businesses.
Secondly, i realised that in putting this together you did not bother to enlighten us on which metrics and criteria you employed to come to these conclusions. Are we talking about sales revenue, subscriptions/year, market penetration or any other tangible measurements that
1. allow others to independently verify or dispute the claims made
2. allow aspiring entrepreneurs or startups to work harder at climbing the list.
That said, thanks for the effort.
@niibisammy
Unfortunately, most of my current startup reviews are focused on technology businesses. In the selection process of startups in Ghana, I considered number and quality of web pages that link to the startup, number of estimated audience, alexa ranking, quality of external links and social engagement.
In general, how relevant users found them and the importance of the startup on the internet and its social influence.
Comments are closed.