Exploring Africa’s blossoming fintech ecosystem, The Fintech Times delves into the success of Visa’s Accelerator Program from the cohort’s perspective, uncovering the program’s instrumental role in fostering and bolstering startups across the continent.
Introduced in July of last year, the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator is a 12-week virtual initiative designed to support fintech startups throughout the continent, providing them with the necessary resources to foster growth and make a significant contribution and impact on the African digital economy.
This inaugural edition of the accelerator featured 23 startups from across Africa, each representing different sub-sectors from the fintech and payments world, including banking-as-a-service, B2B marketplaces, lending infrastructure, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), and neobanking to name a few.
Desola Osami is Head of Growth at Orda, a Nigerian food tech platform that provides a cloud-based restaurant operating system. As part of a special video interview series, she sat down with The Fintech Times to share her insights into the African ecosystem and the journey they are taking with Visa to help expand the market.
How to run a startup
The program is tailored to each startup with mentorship and other sessions provided by Visa and their partners, which according to Osami was invaluable to Orda.
“It’s been fantastic,” Osami remarked. “The program has been incredibly hands-on with all the sessions we’ve had. We’re not just learning about the fintech industry; we’re also gaining valuable insights on how to effectively manage our startup overall.”
“Visa and Plug and Play have been really instrumental in helping us understand the services that Visa provides to fintechs, as well as helping us understand their partner programs. The Visa team especially has been helpful in introducing us to other partners in Nigeria as well. It’s been a great experience for us so far.”
Collaboration and partnership
A particular benefit that the company received from the program was the community of like-minded startups that came with it, with meeting the cohort of fintechs and fostering relationships with them that have the makings of vital collaborations in the future.
She said: “We are actually piloting a partnership with one of the fintechs in the cohort to strengthen our payments proposition to restaurants, and in that partnership that fintech is also now able to provide to their restaurant customers software that allows them to reconcile better so it’s been an awesome opportunity for us.”
To learn more about Orda, its position in the African market and involvement in the Visa Fintech Accelerator, watch the full video interview below.
Image and article originally from thefintechtimes.com. Read the original article here.