A new wave of African startups is transforming key sectors, from financial services to healthcare and enterprise software, by building solutions tailored to local challenges while competing on a global scale.
Google has played a supporting role in this journey through funding, infrastructure, and accelerator programmes, as part of its one billion dollar commitment to Africa’s digital transformation. Some of the startups featured have participated in its accelerator initiatives, while many build directly on its technology stack.
One such initiative is the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa, a three-month, equity-free programme that has run since 2018. It has supported over 100 startups across 17 African countries, offering mentorship from Google teams, technical bootcamps, cloud and AI resources, and access to a global network. Globally, alumni of Google accelerator programmes have collectively raised more than 25 billion dollars.
In addition, the Black Founders Fund, launched in 2021, has backed over 220 startups across Africa and Europe with non-dilutive capital. Beneficiary companies have gone on to raise 379 million dollars and create more than 6,000 jobs.
Beyond funding and mentorship, the startups also leverage tools such as Google Cloud, Gemini, and Vertex AI to power critical functions including risk decisioning, message routing, emergency dispatch, and software testing.
In this report, The Nation’s Samuel Oamen highlights six startups and the leaders behind them who are driving this innovation across the continent.
1. Termii – Olajuwon Abayomi, General Manager, Nigeria
Olajuwon Abayomi, General Manager, Nigeria
Founded in Lagos in 2017, Termii provides the infrastructure behind essential customer communications such as OTPs, debit alerts, fraud checks, and transaction notifications used by banks, fintechs, and telecom companies. The platform now serves over 10,000 businesses monthly, including more than 500 fintechs, with message volumes growing from one million to over 400 million per month.
Termii’s approach has evolved from basic message delivery to what it describes as AI-driven reliability infrastructure. Its systems monitor delivery routes across telecom carriers in real time, predict potential failures, and automatically reroute messages to improve success rates, often without users ever noticing.
‘The best compliment is silence,’ Abayomi said. ‘When the message arrives and everything works, nobody thinks about us.’
The company has raised $5.3 million to date and is part of a growing class of African startups building infrastructure rather than consumer-facing products. It is also an alumnus of the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa and leverages cloud and AI tools to scale its operations.
Leading its Nigerian operations, Abayomi brings experience from Ecobank Nigeria, where he worked across retail banking, agent networks, and digital adoption initiatives before joining Termii and rising through the ranks. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Ibadan.
As digital transactions become more widespread, companies like Termii are increasingly forming the invisible backbone of financial services, ensuring that, in moments when trust matters most, the message always arrives.
2. Bani – Rodney Jackson-Cole, Co-founder and CEO
Rodney Jackson-Cole, Co-founder and CEO
Bani is tackling one of Africa’s biggest financial bottlenecks, slow and expensive cross-border payments. Founded in 2022, the fintech startup enables businesses to settle transactions across African countries in minutes using local currency rails, cutting costs by up to a quarter compared to traditional channels.
Typically, such payments are routed through correspondent banks in Europe or the United States, taking three to seven business days with high fees. Bani eliminates these delays by allowing businesses to accept local payments and complete cross-border settlements seamlessly.
The company is led by Co-founder and CEO Rodney Jackson-Cole, who previously co-founded Prospa, a Y Combinator-backed business banking startup that raised $3.8 million. He also served as Director and CTO at Nestbank and began his career in research and development at Finn Labs. He studied at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration.
3. Lendsqr – Grace Effiom, Head of Enterprise
Grace Effiom, Head of Enterprise
Lendsqr provides the technology backbone that powers credit businesses for banks, microfinance institutions, and digital lenders. Its Lending-as-a-Service platform offers backend infrastructure, decision engines, and data tools, allowing lenders to operate without building systems from scratch.
Thousands of lenders across multiple countries use the platform, which has also committed one billion naira in on-lending capital to smaller lenders. The company has raised $1 million. Its relevance is underscored by data from EFInA showing that only about six percent of Nigerian adults accessed credit from regulated institutions in the past year.
Grace Effiom, Head of Enterprise, has been instrumental in the company’s growth. She joined in 2018 as the first assistant and has worked across several departments, including customer success, HR, finance, and product management. Now an equity holder, she has helped over 2,000 lenders serve more than one million borrowers. She holds a degree in Mass Communication from Caritas University.
4. E-doc Online – Founder and CEO Tunde Ogundipe
Founder and CEO Tunde Ogundipe
E-doc Online is addressing financial exclusion by providing open banking and data infrastructure. Founded in 2021, the fintech and AI startup connects users’ bank accounts, based on consent, and delivers automated KYC, risk assessment, and credit decision tools to institutions via APIs.
With about a quarter of Nigerian adults financially excluded and many lacking formal credit histories, E-doc Online enables lenders to assess previously invisible borrowers. The company is an alumnus of both the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa and the Visa Africa Accelerator.
Founder and CEO Tunde Ogundipe brings over a decade of experience in British banking, including roles at HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Santander, KPMG, and Metro Bank. He previously founded a microfinance bank and KoloboxNG, a micro-investment platform later acquired by an asset management firm. He studied at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
5. Scandium – Jafar Alabi Zubair, VP Product and Business Development
Jafar Alabi Zubair, VP Product and Business Development
Scandium is an AI-powered, no-code software testing platform that enables teams to automate testing for web applications, mobile apps, and APIs without writing code. Built in Lagos, the company operates in a global market and has no direct Nigerian competitors in its category.
The startup achieved a 90 percent gross margin in its first year and was selected as one of 15 companies for the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa from nearly 1,500 applicants.
Jafar Alabi Zubair, Vice President of Product and Business Development, leads growth and innovation at the company. He studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Ibadan and has held product roles at Andela, Descasio, and Fagopay. He is also active in mentoring product managers and supporting innovation ecosystems in Nigeria.
6. Emergency Response Africa – Folake Owodunni, Founder and CEO
Folake Owodunni, Founder and CEO
Emergency Response Africa (ERA) is addressing critical gaps in Nigeria’s emergency healthcare system by providing 24/7 medical response services. Founded in 2018, the healthtech startup connects people in crisis to trained responders, ambulances, and verified hospitals.
With over one million preventable deaths recorded annually in Nigeria and no national ambulance dispatch system, ERA is building a coordinated emergency response network. Its motorcycle medics are equipped to begin treatment on-site, especially in areas where traffic delays traditional ambulances.
Founder and CEO Folake Owodunni was inspired to start ERA after experiencing an efficient emergency response in Canada during her son’s medical crisis. She has over 15 years of experience across healthcare, consulting, and marketing in Nigeria, the United States, and Canada.
She holds a master’s degree in Global Health and Development from University College London, an MBET from the University of Waterloo, and is a certified first responder with the Canadian Red Cross.
Together, these six companies highlight the growing momentum of African innovation, demonstrating how local solutions can address systemic challenges while scaling across the continent and beyond.