Twiga Foods and these four startups are revolutionizing Africa's start up terrain

Objective, win the prize of the "Most promising company of the year", and, above all, convince investors.

Amrote Abdellah, head of the Microsoft 4 Afrika initiative, chaired Monday at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, a presentation session of five start-ups from Morocco, Senegal, Kenya and Nigeria, seeking to raise funds for their development and all vying for the "Most Promising Comapny" award from the Africa CEO Forum.

The boss of each of them had five minutes to do the "pitch" of its business model and its course, followed by such a short session of questions and answers from the jury to award the prize, composed four venture capital funds (Omidyar Network, TLcom Capital, Quantum Global and IFC), which ultimately selected Twiga Foods as the winner.

Twiga Foods, direct sales of fruits and vegetables

Grant Brooke, founder of Twiga Foods, an Oxford-based doctor of economics and social sciences based in Kenya, presented his platform for direct delivery of fruit and vegetables from the producer to the shopkeeper.

The start-up claims no less than 2,600 merchants using its online ordering and payment services via its application, and 200 million bananas delivered in stores since its creation in 2013, the first agricultural sector it invested before extend its activities to market garden products.

Omniup, free wifi against advertising

The Moroccan Ali Bensouda, founder of Omniup, has put forward its offer of free wifi offered in public areas in exchange for advertising videos broadcast on smartphones before the connection. Proposed especially in ONCF stations, in fifteen shopping centers, but also banks and town halls in the kingdom of Morocco, this start-up claims to have already reached 7 million Moroccans, overwhelmingly users of prepaid mobile plans .

InTouch, the one-stop shop for mobile banking

Omar Cisse, leader of InTouch, has promoted his services, allowing Senegalese traders, but also Mali and Ivory Coast, where he has just established, to take stock, via a single application, on all of their mobile banking transactions, regardless of the carrier, rather than having to consult each one of them.

It claims nearly 6,000 merchant users, representing 40,000 transactions per day. After having recently raised 7 million euros to develop in the first three countries, Omar Cissé seeks an additional 8 million euros from investors to extend its services in thirty countries on the continent.

Africa's talking, the link between programmers and developers

Samuel Gikandi, head of Africa's talking, already active in seven East African countries, has touted its intermediation platform, which connects companies wishing to develop smartphone applications - such as Safaricom, and the independent African programmers it federates and remunerates.

Thrive Agric, a crowdfunding platform

Uka Eje, founder of Thrive Agric , presented his farm crowdfunding platform, which currently supports 4,500 Nigerian farmers, with the aim of supporting them to optimize their logistics and yields through technical and commercial support and exchanges within the user community.