• Women-led innovation at the forefront, with 8 female founders and 90 per cent of startups featuring female leadership
• 86 African fintechs has been accelerated through the program to date, with a cumulative $1.3 billion valuation across the four cohorts

Visa, a global leader in digital payments, convened founders, investors, corporate partners, and industry leaders in Cape Town on 1 December 2025 for the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator  program Cohort 4 Demo Day.

The event spotlighted 22 high‑growth fintech startups from across the continent, marking the culmination of an intensive three‑month journey to develop and scale innovative digital commerce solutions.

Cohort 4 reflects the continued momentum of Africa’s fintech landscape and demonstrates the strength, diversity, and ambition of the region’s innovators.

This year’s group includes startups headquartered in 12 African countries and operating across 31 markets.

Women-led innovation stands out as a defining feature of this cohort, with eight female founders and 90 percent of participating startups having a women part of their leadership team.

With Cohort 4, Visa has now accelerated 86 African fintech startups, which collectively hold a cumulative valuation of USD 1.3 billion. Alumni continue to scale into new markets, secure follow‑on investment, and develop deeper commercial engagements with Visa.

Structured pathways to investment and global partnerships

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program offers startups a pathway to scale through hands-on, specialized support. Participating companies receive guidance across product design, marketing, finance, and sales, as well as one‑to‑one mentorship from experienced founders and industry specialists.

The program also helps startups build strategic partnerships and access investment opportunities through Visa’s extensive global network.

This year’s program also deepened collaboration with three strategic corporate partners – Bank of Africa, Onafriq, and First Bank of Nigeria Ltd.

Each partner played a pivotal role by sharing industry expertise, market insights, and access to their broad operational capabilities.

Their involvement not only enriched the cohort experience but also opened pathways for potential commercial partnerships, investment opportunities, and proof-concept engagements.

Together, this expanded strategic community is helping to unlock new business opportunities and drive collaborative growth across Africa’s financial ecosystem.

A Sector on the Rise

Fintech continues to be the engine of Africa’s venture ecosystem. McKinsey estimates that Africa’s fintech revenues could reach US$47 billion by 2028, rising from approximately US$10 billion in 2023, a trajectory that highlights the sector’s significant commercial potential.

The broader ecosystem is expanding at pace as well: the number of active fintech companies nearly tripled between 2020 and early 2024, increasing from 450 to 1,263 firms, according to the European Investment Bank.

Together, these indicators reinforce the strong investor confidence and growing consumer demand driving the adoption of digital‑first financial services across the continent.

Andrew Uaboi, vice president/cluster head Visa West Africa said:

“Africa’s fintech landscape continues to expand at extraordinary speed, powered by founders solving real-world challenges and reshaping the future of digital commerce. The startups in Cohort 4 truly capture the energy and ingenuity driving Africa’s fintech transformation. We are proud to stand behind their journey and eager to see the new possibilities they unlock as they scale across the continent.”

These investments reiterate Visa’s focus on facilitating digital innovation in Africa, driving fintech growth, and enhancing financial inclusion across the continent. 

The four startups, operating across multiple African countries are: 

• Oze, a Ghana-based startup providing digital record-keeping tools and embedded finance products to SMEs. The company helps businesses manage transactions, access affordable capital, and attain growth. Additionally, the startup offers a Loan Management System (LMS) for financial institutions, featuring machine learning-based credit scoring to enhance lending decisions and expand access to credit for MSMEs.
• Workpay, a HR tech firm headquartered in Kenya. The company offers a comprehensive cloud-based payroll and HR platform that manages the entire employee lifecycle, enabling payroll processing, time tracking, employee benefits administration, performance management and Employer of Record services in more than 35 countries across Africa.
• OkHi based in Nigeria, is a smart addressing system that provides digital address verification, enabling businesses to collect, verify, and navigate to accurate addresses, thereby improving delivery efficiency and access to financial services.
• ORDA, a cloud-based restaurant software company digitizing over 1,500 restaurants across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa with tools for order processing, inventory management, and financial services to optimize operations and fuel growth.

Graduates of the second cohort of the program will have the opportunity to present their innovative capabilities during a Demo Day set to take place on December 2nd in Cape Town, South Africa, to an audience of venture capitalists, angel investors, ecosystem enablers and business partners.

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program – is a three-month intensive program that supports Seed to Series A start-ups by offering 1:1 mentorship, training, and exclusive opportunities for funding and partnership. 

Launched in 2023, it aligns with Visa’s pledge to invest $1 billion in the continent by 2027, helping to uplift and bolster its digital transformation.

Godfrey Sullivan, senior vice president of Products, Partnerships and Digital Solutions for Visa CEMEA, said “These investments mark a substantial step for Visa – we are once again standing behind our commitment to innovation in Africa, helping to shape the future of digital payments alongside some of the brightest fintech minds that the continent has to offer. Visa sees each investment as a unique opportunity to drive financial access and inclusion, and we are proud to support these start-ups as they realize their vision for a more connected Africa.”

Meghan McCormick, chief executive officer at Oze commented: “This investment marks the latest pivotal moment in our journey, enabling us to scale our innovations to continue supporting MSMEs across Africa – something that both we and our shareholders are truly passionate about.”

Timbo Drayson, co-founder and CEO of Okhi commented:  “We are thrilled to welcome Visa onboard as we continue to disrupt the industry and redefine what’s possible through our identity verification solutions. The future is bright, and partnerships like this help us take a step forward toward achieving our vision.”

Guy Futi, co-founder of ORDA commented: “We are proud to have an established payments leader such as Visa be part of our growth journey. We see this investment as a mark of trust in our vision. We look forward to driving innovation together, one order at a time.”

Paul Kimani, co-founder and CEO of WorkPay commented: “We are happy to have Visa in our corner. As a trusted leader in digital payments, Visa’s support pushes us toward our goal of delivering innovative solutions and streamlining backend processes for all.”

Additional investments and commercial partnerships with the program’s graduates are being finalized and will be announced soon.

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program is supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers free cloud services to cohort participants. 

Companies interested in Africa are invited to join and contribute to developing the next generation of fintech innovators, experiencing the transformative power of these partnerships.

• The Visa Fintech Accelerator program provides startups in Africa with valuable 1:1 mentorship, personalized training, and networking opportunities.
• The fintech companies have been selected from 28 African countries – of these, 65% are female-led.
• Start-ups will participate in a 12-week program designed to uplift innovation across Africa.

Visa, a world leader in digital payments, has announced the startups shortlisted from across Africa to participate in the second cohort of its Africa Fintech Accelerator program.

As part of Visa’s work to unlock financial innovation across the continent, the biannual program offers 12 weeks of 1:1 mentorship and personalized training, providing seed to series A startups with exclusive opportunities to access funding, development, and resources.

Cohort 2 startups operate across 28 African countries, a 55% increase from Cohort 1 where the representatives operated across 18 countries. 65% of them feature female leadership, rising from 43% in the inaugural edition.

The selected startups offer a range of solutions, such as neo-banking, merchant payments, credit scoring, risk and identity management, embedded finance, social commerce, escrow services, and more.

They aim to address the challenges and opportunities in the African fintech landscape, such as financial inclusion, access to credit, cross-border payments, and digital transformation.

Aida Diarra, vice president, and head of Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa remarked: “At Visa, we believe in uplifting innovation while driving access and inclusion across the financial ecosystem. Today, we are proud to say that our second cohort of Accelerator participants represents more than 50% of countries across Africa, up from a third during our first cohort. Not only that–but women are in leadership roles across most of these cutting-edge startups. We have a robust, diverse selection of innovators seeking to shape the future of commerce and finance – and Visa is happy to help them take the next step to where they need to be.”

The Accelerator program, launched in June 2023, is reflective of Visa’s ongoing efforts to help uplift the digital economy in Africa, including a pledge to invest $1 billion in the continent by 2027 to help revolutionize the payments ecosystem.

The 12-week virtual Accelerator program will conclude with an in-person Demo Day, where startups will have the opportunity to pitch their innovations to key ecosystem players, funding partners, angel investors, and venture capitalists, enabling them to take small steps towards unlocking their full potential.

The program builds on the success of the first cohort, who graduated in February 2024 with an investor week in Nairobi that saw the participation of more than 250 attendees including banking and fintech partners, investors, and venture capital firms.

The first cohort startups have since reported positive outcomes from the program, such as increased user growth, product enhancements, funding opportunities, and strategic partnerships with Visa and other industry players.

Dolapo Adejuyigbe, co-founder and Co-CEO of Traction, a Nigerian startup, and developers of the Traction App, a one stop platform for small businesses to accept payments, run their businesses and access capital for growth, who participated in the first cohort, commented:

“The Visa Accelerator Program has been very engaging infused with practical learnings across all parameters required to build and scale our business. We have also been able to involve some of our team members in these programs, which we believe will expedite our path to execution. Grateful to also be part of a community of founders who are looking for similar outcomes for their startups, acting as peer mentors through the process. Lastly, we are very excited on the initiatives we are partnering with Visa on, some of which we have started executing on even during the accelerator program.”

The Sub-Saharan Africa startups shortlisted for the second cohort of the Visa Fintech Accelerator program for Africa are:

East Africa

• Chapa – Ethiopia – Merchant Solutions
• CheckUps Medical Hub – Kenya – Embedded Finance (Health)
• AzamPay – Tanzania – B2B Marketplace
• Beem – Tanzania – Social Commerce

Western & Central Africa

• Bizao – Ivory Coast – Merchant Payments Solution
• Hub2 – Ivory Coast – Enabler Infrastructure
• Iwomi Technologies – Cameroon – Money Movement
• Proboutik – Cameroon – Merchant Payments Solution
• Vaultpay – Democratic Republic of Congo – Merchant Payments Solution
• Aku – Nigeria – Neo-banking
• Cleva – Nigeria – Money Movement
• Curacel – Nigeria – Insurance Management
• E-doc Online – Nigeria – Open Banking
• Raenest – Nigeria – Money Movement
• Bridgecard – Nigeria – Enabler Infrastructure

Southern Africa

• Ordev – South Africa – Merchant Value Add Solutions
• Truzo – South Africa – Escrow Services
• Lupiya – Zambia – Neo-banking

Visa is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating more than 215 billion payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories each year.

Its mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive.