Applications for inaugural AWS FinTech Africa accelerator opens

By Alexander Chiejina

Amazon Web Services’ Startup Loft Accelerator team has announced the inaugural launch of its AWS FinTech Africa Accelerator.

Pre-seed and seed stage fintech founders operating in Africa and building companies to solve fundamental issues in payments, open/embedded finance, digital banking, blockchain, decentralised finance, fintech-as-a-service, and other fintech categories are encouraged to apply to the upcoming accelerator cohort between now and April 27, 2023.

The equity-free accelerator programme aims to support early-stage fintech companies with everything from technology, product development, go-to-market strategy, and preparing founders for the nuances and complications of fundraising. The 10-week, virtual accelerator is designed to give CEO’s & CTO’s the necessary tools for unlocking meaningful growth and scale, while also connecting them with world-class mentors and a global network of AWS Startup Loft Accelerator alumni.

Given AWS’ industry-leading cloud infrastructure, the accelerator will work closely with CTOs to prepare them with everything from recruiting world-class talent to managing an engineering team, building a minimum viable product, and design principles for cloud architecture.

Cohort participants are also eligible to join the AWS Activate programme which will provide each startup with up to $25,000 in AWS Activate Credits along with an array of other services in addition to exclusive offers from AWS’ partner companies.

The programme announcement is making waves across the African fintech industry given its unprecedented support from industry-leaders including Techcabal, the Africa Fintech Summit, Lateral Frontiers, Unicorn Growth Capital, Vestbee, Stripe, and many others. With the assistance of these partners, the programme will equip founders with tech resources, expert guidance, and a global network of industry leaders, technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, associations, and partners.