Black-founded YC companies
September, 2020
Below are YC companies that have opted into appearing on this list.
$2.08B
combined valuation
$483M
total amount raised
Companies founded by Black founders

54GeneLagos, Nigeria
We are an African genomics research, services and development company addressing the need to include under-represented African genomic data in research which could lead to medical breakthroughs and new healthcare solutions worldwide.
Founders

Abasi Ene-Obong
Founder

Ogochukwu Francis Osifo
Founder

AellaSan Francisco, CA, USA
Easiest way for the underbanked to access finance and get insured
Aella makes it super easy for Individuals in emerging markets to borrow, invest, make payments, and get insured. We are at the forefront of financial inclusion and empowerment of the underbanked.
Founders

Wale Akanbi
CTO

Akin Jones
CEO

AfriexSan Francisco, CA, USA
Stablecoin remittances
Afriex makes it easy for immigrants to send money home. We use stablecoins to offer the fastest and cheapest remittance service to over 30 countries around the world.
Founders

Tope Alabi
Founder

John Obirije
Founder

AfrostreamParis, France
AFROSTREAM is Netflix for African-American and African content…
Afrostream brings you the best black shows, films, web series and more, streaming online anytime, anywhere. The site boasts an international library of 1,000+ hours of premium content, subtitled or dubbed according to the local market. Afrostream has licensing deals in place with Warner Brothers, Sony, Viacom, Lionsgate, and Sky Vision among others.
The company has signed distribution deals with TF1, Orange and Bouygues telecom and debuted in the summer of 2016 on set-top boxes in over 12 million households in Europe. Afrostream was previously incubated by Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator and has secured investments from Orange, Cross Culture Ventures, and ACE & Company. Afrostream is accessible on Smart TVs, on the web, iPad, iPhone, and Android devices in 28 countries in Europe and Africa.
Afrostream targets the 15M people of African descent in Europe and 936M Africans in sub-Saharan Africa.

AirfordableChicago, IL, USA
Buy flights for only a fraction upfront and pay off the rest in…
Airfordable is payment plans for airline tickets. The service allows users to secure tickets with a deposit upfront and pay the remaining balance in bi-weekly recurring payments before the departure date.
Founders

Emmanuel Buah
CTO

Ama Marfo
CEO

AptDecoNew York, NY, USA
AptDeco is the easiest way to buy and sell used furniture
AptDeco is a peer-to-peer managed marketplace dedicated for buying and selling quality used furniture. We offer a complete end-to-end process to bring back the joy of discovering amazing furniture finds for the home again. Our customers benefit from a trusted and verified community of buyers and sellers, pre-arranged pick up and delivery and a secure electronic payment process.
Founders

Reham Fagiri
CEO

kalam dennis
Founder

AvionAddis Ababa, Ethiopia
A drone delivery network which is live in Africa delivering medical…
Founders

Mohammed Ahmed
Founder

Brook Ayalneh
Founder

Bitiya Samuel
Founder

BambooLagos, Nigeria
Bamboo ― the first online brokerage service for Africans and their…
Bamboo is the first online brokerage service that gives wealthy Africans and their wealth managers direct access to the US and global securities. We’re building Fidelity for the African continent.
For wealthy Africans and their asset managers, investing in the global capital markets is cumbersome, expensive and practically inaccessible. In Nigeria, Africa's largest economy and home to 30% of all the wealth in Sub Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa), 99.99% of the investing population do not have access to invest globally. Even for the 0.01%, if you wanted to buy a US stock, you’d have to call your asset manager who would then call an international broker to execute a trade. This is inefficient & expensive!
We have a mobile app that allows individuals trade the US stock markets by themselves and a brokerage tool for asset managers to execute trades directly & manage multilple portfolios seamlessly.
Founders

Richmond Bassey
Founder

Yanmo Omorogbe
Founder

BankjoyTroy, MI, USA
An end-to-end digital banking solution for banks and credit unions
Bankjoy provides a full suite of modern digital banking software, including mobile banking, online banking, online account opening, loan applications, and conversational AI to banks and credit unions.
Founders

Mike Duncan
CEO

BottomlessSeattle, WA, USA
Automatic home restocking using weight sensors to figure out the best…
Founders

Liana Herrera
Founder

Michael Mayer
Founder

BreezefulToronto, ON, Canada
An online mortgage broker. Get the best mortgage, fast.
Breezeful gets you the best mortgage online from start to close. Instead of dealing with multiple banks, credit checks and in-person meetings, we’ll use your income, credit score, and other financial data from your application to negotiate with hundreds of lenders on your behalf in seconds.
Founders

Anthony De Guzman
Founder

Ade Labinjo
Founder

Business Score
Connecting online businesses with funding options
Business Score connects online businesses with funding options
Founders

Rich Serunjogi
Founder

BuyCoinsLagos, Nigeria
Cryptocurrency exchange for Africa
BuyCoins (previously Bitkoin Africa) is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows Africans buy and sell cryptocurrencies instantly using their local currency.
Founders

Ire Aderinokun
Founder

Timi Ajiboye
Founder

CapWayAtlanta, GA, USA
CapWay is a mobile bank for the financially underserved.
CapWay is a mobile bank for the financially underserved in the U.S. We are creating economic opportunities and access to financial services for those who do not have access to or untrusting of traditional banking.
The company has a B2C and B2B2C customer acquisition strategy.
Founders

Sheena Allen
Founder

Career KarmaSan Francisco, CA, USA
Helps job training programs find qualified applicants.
Helps job training programs find qualified applicants.
We're starting with coding bootcamps. They pay us ~$1,200 per placement.
375 Million people will switch careers by 2030 and we are focused on the 16 million Americans who enroll in trade schools every year.
Founders

Ruben A. Harris
Founder

Artur Meyster
Founder

Timur Meyster
Founder
ChesscademyNew York, NY, USA
Chesscademy makes learning chess fun and easy. With a wide range of instructive courses and thousands of tactical puzzles, users of all levels can learn from a personalized curriculum that's tailored to their strengths and weaknesses.
Chesscademy has a growing community of over 500K users from 190 countries.

Correlia BiosystemsBerkeley, CA, USA
Next-gen blood testing to provide 1000x more data to pharma companies
Correlia Biosystems is a UC Berkeley spinoff company based in Berkeley, CA. Correlia develops innovative microscale tools that accelerate rapid quantification of biomolecules.
Our versatile "SimpleScan" technology opens up new biological questions from one microliter of sample, with rapid results that allow for dynamic monitoring of protein expression profiles (rather than simple end-point measurement). Applications range from enabling next-gen proteomic data sets to point-of-care diagnostics.
Founders

Akwasi Apori
Founder

Kursad Araz
CTO

Samuel Tia
Founder

CowrywiseLagos, Nigeria
Digitizing wealth management in Africa
Cowrywise is a FinTech company democratizing access to premium financial services by making these services available to the mass market cheaply. We are leveraging technology and investment management to re-imagine how financial planning, savings and investment products are delivered to people. We do this by helping our customers achieve their savings and investments goals in a simple, secure and affordable manner.
Founders

Razaq Ahmed
CEO

Edward Popoola
CTO

CredPalLagos, Nigeria
CredPal is a modern credit card company in Africa that allows…
Founders

Mofehintolu Olaogun
Founder

CrowdForceAbuja, Nigeria
Crowdforce is an app that allows any local merchant in Africa,…
CrowdForce is an app that allows any local merchant in Africa, starting with Nigeria to become a bank branch within minutes.
Founders

Oluwatomi Ayorinde
Founder

Damilola Ayorinde
Founder

EdlyftSan Francisco, CA, USA
Creating 1 million new computer science college grads
Edlyft is a paid support program and platform for college students in STEM. Edlyft helps college students through their toughest STEM classes, starting with computer science, by offering online group tutoring, study groups, and content on navigating computer science.
Before Edlyft, Arnelle worked as an engineer at Google, a product manager at startup Lark Health, and then spent a year and a half solving complex strategy problems for Fortune 500 companies at Bain. Erika has consumer and digital educational experience as an engineer at Facebook and a product manager for LinkedIn Learning.
Founders

Arnelle Ansong
Founder

Erika Hairston
Founder

EpihubNew York, NY, USA
Epihub is Shopify for anyone teaching online 👩💻👨💻
Epihub offers educators an all-in-one platform for scheduling, billing, and teaching online. Epihub blends eight products together, including a website builder and embed, CRM, custom intake forms, scheduler for appointments, virtual event management, virtual classroom, payment processing for invoices and credits, plus paystubs and progress reports.
Founders

Michael MacKay
Founder

Kwasi Oppong-Badu
Founder

Uday Singh
Founder

EzeSan Francisco, CA, USA
Eze is a commodities exchange for used smartphones.
Eze is a B2B Marketplace that connects telecommunication and global electronic wholesalers allowing them to trade devices in wholesale quantities with real-time market data. Our aim is to formalize the fragmented and inefficient second-hand electronics market that had an estimated beachhead of $17 billion in 2016 which grew 50% from 2015. (Deloitte)
Buyers and sellers use our platform to submit buy and sell requests. Eze automatically connects the two parties with compatible bids and executes the trade. The platform gives businesses real-time market prices and eliminates transaction risk by acting as an intermediary with a secure payment system.
Founders

David Iya
Founder

Joshua Nzewi
Founder

FacioSão Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil
Facio provides low-priced payroll loans to employees in Brazil.
Founders

Márcio Dos Santos
Founder

Saulo Tristao
Founder

Ticiano Vieira
Founder

Felix BiotechnologySan Francisco, CA, USA
Viruses that kill targeted human bacterial infections
Felix is focused on accelerating the deployment of novel biotherapeutics targeting urgent microbial challenges in human health and beyond.
Founders

Robert McBride
Founder

Vivek Mutalik
Founder

Paul Turner
Founder

FlipLos Angeles, CA, USA
Community-driven marketplace for sneakers.
FLIP is everyone’s sneaker connect — the premier specialty destination where people find and sell hard to find, rare, limited edition sneakers. They have created a community where their members can buy and sell with confidence and ease. Never miss out on an opportunity to place your bid on hard to find sneakers in 90 minutes from a curated list of quality sellers who really care. Their mobile only platform is currently available for your iPhone and coming soon to Android. They strive to keep an open and trusted environment for their community.
Founders

Kemar Newell
CEO

FlutterwaveLagos, Nigeria
Helping businesses make and accept payments from anywhere in Africa.
At Flutterwave, we are on a mission to build payments infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy.
We do this by building technology, tools, and infrastructure for businesses and banks who want to provide a more seamless and secure payments experience for their customers. Founded in 2016 by a team of African finance and technology veterans from Standard Bank, Angela, PayPal, Google Wallet amongst others.
Flutterwave has grown to become one of the fastest growing payments companies in the world. Since inception Flutterwave has processed close to $2 billion in payments and 25 million transactions across over 33 African countries where it currently operates.
It has attracted significant investment from experienced Fintech investors such as Ycombinator Continuity Fund (investors in Stripe), Greycroft (investors in Braintree and Venmo), Greenvisor Capital, Omidyar Network, and Glynn Capital amongst others. In 2017 Flutterwave was named Africa’s best fintech company at the Apps Africa Innovation Awards.
Founders

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji
Managing Director

ACA Adekoya
Founder

Olugbenga GB Agboola
Founder

Future FieldsEdmonton, AB, Canada
Cell growth media for lab grown meat
We make the most important ingredient for lab grown meat - cell growth media. We make cell growth media 1000 times cheaper than anyone else through our novel production system.
Future Fields started out as a lab grown meat company, focusing on chicken products. We developed our first prototype using cell culture media available on the market today. With this, the price of our chicken was $3000 US per lb. Would you buy a really good chicken nugget for $300? Probably not.
We prioritized overcoming this hurdle first, and we were successful! We developed an entirely new way of producing growth factors - which are the key (and most expensive) component of cell culture media. We realized this technology could solve the same problem all lab grown meat companies face.
Given our mission to singlehandedly kickstart the next agricultural revolution, we decided to pivot and focus on enabling the entire industry to succeed. Our cell culture media is affordable, scalable, and fully customizable to meet the specific needs of individual cell lines, from pork to kangaroo, and everything in between.
Founders

Jalene Anderson-Baron
Founder

Matt Anderson-Baron
Founder

Lejjy Gafour
Founder

GamebytesSan Francisco, CA, USA
Games with friends
Founders

Kane Thomas
Founder

Jared Downing
Founder

GatherCleveland, OH, USA
Project management software for People Operations
Gather is software that helps high-growth teams build and execute their onboarding, offboarding, and other People Operations programs. Gather replaces manual coordination with smart, automated communication powered by a deep integration with Slack.
Founders

Alex Hilleary
Founder

Brooks Sime
Founder

John Wetzel
Founder

GigsterSan Francisco, CA, USA
Build and manage distributed teams
Gigster is democratizing access to software by enabling organizations harness the best teams regardless of where they are in the world.
Businesses with access to custom software have thousands of times more leverage than those without. We believe that by democratizing access as well as the ability to build great software we can increase the pace and efficiency of human advancement.
Core to our approach is building the best place to work on the internet. We are building the largest network of exceptional engineers, designers, and product managers and making this network available to businesses. We are also using software and insights from thousands of projects to improve the odds of successful outcomes.
Gigster is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint, Marc Benioff, Adam D'Angelo, Michael Jordan and others. Gigster has served well over 1000 customers including multiple F100 companies spanning a range of industries.
Founders

Debo Olaosebikan
Founder

GiveMeTapLondon, UK
We produce & sell stainless steel water bottles that enables people…
GiveMeTap is a social enterprise. Our mission is to make clean drinking water available to everyone, everywhere.
We create stainless steel water bottles, and each bottle funds 5 years of clean water for someone in Africa. When you get a GiveMeTap bottle, you also have access to the free-water network of cafes and shops who give free tap water to people on the go. No questions, no hassle.
We build water projects in remote villages and elect a water committee to run the maintenance of the water. So far we have made an impact in Namibia, Malawi, and Ghana to bring clean water for the first time.
We like to think of this as ‘Water for You, Water for Everyone’.
We help awesome companies create custom bottles for their staff, customers, and events so that they can stay hydrated, reduce plastic waste and help fund water projects. Our partners include:
Deloitte
HSBC
YCombinator
Google
TED
Flexport
Legal & General
Richard Branson's The Lodge, Switzerland
Cambridge University
Want to get your company involved? Visit http://bit.ly/2j2Ef64
Water for you. Water for everyone.
Founders

Edwin Broni-Mensah
The Water Guy

GrainOakland, CA, USA
Grain transforms the debit card you already have into a credit card…
Grain is a mobile app that transforms the debit card you already have into a credit card by linking it to a line of credit based on your cash flow. For the millennials, Gen Zs, and immigrants who are afraid of falling into crippling credit card debt, there is now a distinct market opportunity to offer an alternative to how these 100M people access and manage credit.
Founders

Patrick De Suza
Founder

Christian-Robert Joseph
Founder

Carl-Alain Memnon
Founder

Helium HealthLagos, Nigeria
Africa's #1 healthcare technology provider.
Helium Health provides a suite of technology for healthcare providers, payers and patients across Africa — most prominent of which is our maiden electronic medical records (EMR) & hospital management information system (HMIS) for emerging markets.
Founders

Adegoke Olubusi
CEO

Dimeji Sofowora
COO

HingetoOakland, CA, USA
A B2B marketplace that connects inventory to online stores
Hingeto is a technology platform that enables fashion brands & influencers to sell past and future masterpieces with zero inventory risk.
We are backed by Y Combinator (W16), Kapor Capital, Cross Culture Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Stanford University / StartX & several angels (including Andrew Iguodala)
Founders

Akintunde Ismail Maiyegun
CTO

Yaw Owusu-Barimah
Founder

Leandrew Robinson
CEO

InEventAtlanta, GA, USA
Virtual, online and hybrid events, meetings and conferences
Discover the InEvent Virtual Lobby, the top event marketing solution in the world today: https://inevent.com/en/virtual-online-streaming-events-room-events-innovative.php
InEvent is an all in one platform that allows you to use multiple solutions (website, registration, mobile app, hospitality, check-in, badge printing, budgeting, etc) altogether, without having to upload data 3-4x times on different pages.
Everything is available on the cloud, 24x7, for you and your attendees. Most of our competitors have modules that don't talk with each other, we solved this by creating a solid foundation that all of our solutions are built upon.
We have already successfully improved more than 12,400 events, boosting more than 2,390,000 registrations so far. We have integrations with Salesforce, Marketo, Oracle, Microsoft and other vendors to create a simple, easy-to-use marketing ecosystem for all our customers.
Founders

Pedro Góes
Founder

Mauricio Giordano
Founder

Vinicius Neris
Founder

JopwellNew York, NY, USA
Career advancement for Black, Latinx & Native American professionals.
Jopwell’s mission is to make a substantial, measurable impact on increasing Black, Latinx, and Native American representation in the workforce. Jopwell strives to build inclusive workplaces where our members can bring their authentic selves to work. We do this by assisting companies with their recruitment, marketing, and retention efforts for communities of color.
Founders

Porter Braswell
CEO

Ryan Williams
President

JupiterSan Francisco, CA, USA
Groceries on autopilot
Founders

Chad Munroe
Founder

Anuraag Nallapati
Founder

Anna Piñol
Founder

Will Yin
Founder

Kobo360Oworonshoki, Nigeria
With Kobo's platform, companies now have easy access to a large pool…
Kobo is a technology company providing SMEs with turn-key solutions to challenges hampering their ability to scale. The company was founded on the desire to provide solutions that drive efficiency and growth in verticals where these are challenges.
The company has designed effective solutions for the challenges in the logistics space by connecting asset owners in the industry with the MSMEs that need their services.
Kobo is also preparing to enter the agro-trading space by developing a marketplace that connects farmers with buyers all over the world. The marketplace will effectively eliminate the high cost of middlemen for smallholder farmers and significantly increase their profits.
Founders

Ife Oyedele II
Founder

Obi Ozor
Founder

LandedSan Francisco, CA, USA
Tools to build financial security for people with essential jobs
Landed is on a mission to help essential professionals, starting with educators,
build financial security near the communities they serve. The company
supports them on the path to homeownership by providing a personalized
team that includes a Landed homebuying expert and a partner agent. Landed
helps families navigate all of their options for buying a home, including its own
shared equity down payment program. The company provides free homebuying
education and guidance as well as competitive offer reviews. Landed currently works
with K-12, college, and university employees in expensive metro areas like San
Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, D.C., Boston and Hawaiʻi.
Founders

Jonathan Asmis
Founder

Alex Lofton
Founder

LendtableSan Francisco, CA, USA
We give employees wealth-building loans for their 401(k) match and…
1 in 4 Americans do not get their full 401(k) match. That means 25 million workers are leaving $24 billion on the table in free employer contributions. The primary reason these workers cannot get their match is because they do not have enough to both cover living expenses and invest.
Lendtable helps workers get thousands in additional income by giving them a cash advance to cover their living expenses so they can finally begin earning their employer match. Once their money has vested we take some of the match money earned in order to cover our expenses.
Workers now have thousands of dollars more without putting any money down, and we make money helping them do so -- we win if they win.
Founders

Sheridan Clayborne
Founder

Mitchell Jones
Founder
LocentSanta Monica, CA, USA
Locent is an automated messaging platform for companies
Founders

Matt Joseph
CEO

MarketForce 360Nairobi, Kenya
Salesforce for Retail Distribution in Africa.
MarketForce 360 is enabling FMCG companies to manage their field sales activities and grow their distribution channels in Africa.
Today, 90% of retail transactions occur through informal channels, with millions of corner shops and field sales agents acting as the first point of contact between retailers and brands.
With MarketForce 360's mobile app, sales agents record sales activities as they happen, including orders, visits, deliveries, payments, and feedback. The data is then visible in real-time to manufacturers, distributors, and financial service providers, enabling them to monitor and optimize their sales and distribution channels across agents, shops, and regions.
MarketForce 360 is already enabling trade across 50,000+ retailers, and $250 million in transactions have been processed through the platform to date. We recently raised $500,000 in seed funding from ViKtoria Ventures, EchoVC Partners, P1 Ventures, Ventures Platform and a group of strong angel investors.
Founders

Tesh Mbaabu
Founder

Mesongo Sibuti
Founder

MentalHappySan Francisco, CA, USA
Social network for positive peer support
MentalHappy is the first social network designed to help people of all races, genders and economic statuses improve their emotional wellbeing through positive peer support. We provide a safe and secure platform to talk about mental health and the challenges you face in your daily life, receive support from others like you who understand what you’re experiencing, and learn practical tips and techniques to help you heal and improve your emotional fitness each day. We make it possible for everyone to get the help they deserve without the financial and physical limitations often associated with traditional therapies.
Founders

Tamar Blue
CEO

Meter FeederPittsburgh, PA, USA
Pay for parking by turning your car off.
Cities are losing billions of dollars trying to price the curb for shared vehicles (Car2Go, Scoot, FedEx). Meter Feeder enables traditional and autonomous vehicles to pay for parking with no human interaction, so cities can make money, and fleets can remain compliant.
Founders

Jim Gibbs
CEO

Daniel Lopretto
CTO
mReliefChicago, IL, USA
mRelief has built an easy-to-use platform and web and text messaging…
mRelief is a nonprofit that provides an easy-to-use platform on the web and text messaging -- at 74544 -- for Americans to sign up for SNAP. Built on public datasets provided by the USDA on BBCE and COVID-19 Waivers, they help people find out if they might be likely eligible for SNAP in all 50 states and DC.
Founders

Rose Afriyie
Executive Director

Genevieve Nielsen
CTO

MultiverseBoston, MA, USA
Multiverse is a web-based game creation system inspired by Dungeons &…
Multiverse is a web-based game creation system inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and Roblox with a marketplace for assets from A-list creators. We've already partnered with several prominent creators who have millions of followers and millions in revenue, and they're bringing their audiences to Multiverse. We charge 30-60% of those sales based on how much we help the creators make the content.
Check out our [gameplay trailer here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rPwwhw03HO7uda_YDXBfKfvCZ_fHV795/view?usp=sharing).
The best way to get Multiverse is to play it. If you're into games, creativity and representation, hit us up and we'll play with you.
Founders

Sara Alfageeh
Founder

Hisham Bedri
Founder

Thariq Shihipar
Founder
MystroSan Francisco, CA, USA
Mystro is an app that makes rideshare drivers up to 30% more money by…
Mystro is an automation app that makes on-demand drivers up to 30% more money. Mystro allows drivers to safely and easily run Uber, Lyft and other platforms simultaneously and auto accepts only the trips they want.
Founders

Matthew Rajcok
CTO

Dwayne Shaw
COO

NALADar es Salaam, Tanzania
Bank for Africans globally, starting with sending money home.
Hi YC,
I'm excited to share with you about NALA (iwantnala.com). We’re building a new kind of mobile money transfer for Africans worldwide. Join the movement and let’s create something amazing together.
Make secure and reliable payments from Europe to East Africa this Autumn 2020! Hear our story here: https://youtu.be/xyQoRDqFFoc
We would love to hear about YC ideas and experiences in this space, feel free to ping by email: benjamin@nala.money
Founders

Benjamin Fernandes
Founder

Sam Castle
Founder

NaturAll ClubPhiladelphia, PA, USA
Frozen beauty products.
Founders

Muhga Eltigani
Founder

Sam Roberts
Founder

NewCraft
API for employee data
NewCraft is a data warehouse for employee data. We connect to products like Rippling, Greenhouse, Lattice and more to make all of your employee data accessible with a simple API. You can think of us like Segment for employee data. NewCraft makes it 10x easier to add a new employee service or migrate between these services.
Founders

Cameron Sadler
CEO

New Story CharitySan Francisco, CA, USA
We pioneer solutions to address global homelessness.
We imagine a world where no human lives in survival mode. Learn more at newstorycharity.org
Founders

Brett Hagler
CEO

Alexandria Lafci
Founder

Matthew Marshall
Founder

NexTravelSan Francisco, CA, USA
NexTravel is a centralized travel booking platform that helps…
NexTravel is a platform for companies to manage and streamline travel. We help companies get access to corporate/group negotiated rates for hotels, cars - making booking travel easier and more cost-effective. Email us at travel@nextravel.com or go to https://www.nextravel.com/ to find out more.
Founders

Wen-Wen Lam
CEO

Alexey Pakhomov
Founder

OpenBiomeCambridge, MA, USA
A nonprofit stool bank enabling access to fecal transplants.
We are a nonprofit stool bank, expanding safe access to fecal transplants and catalyzing research on the human microbiome.
Founders

Carolyn Edelstein
Founder

Majdi Osman
Founder

ParagonLos Angeles, CA, USA
Embed in-app SaaS integrations that connect with your customers' apps.
Paragon Connect makes it easy to instantly embed SaaS integrations in your product that connect seamlessly with your customers' apps.
Founders

Brandon Foo
Founder

Ishmael Samuel
Founder

PaystackLagos, Nigeria
Modern payments infrastructure for Africa
Paystack is a small and vibrant family working across Lagos and San Francisco.
Paystack lets businesses accept payments via credit card, debit card, money transfer and mobile money on their websites or mobile apps.
Founders

Shola Akinlade
CEO

Ezra Olubi
CTO

PerchLos Angeles, CA, USA
Credit Karma for the Underbanked
Perch operates as an intermediary between banks and college students, enabling students to build their credit score without a credit card/loan and also realigns financial institutions with the college market, as current regulations from the FCRA Credit Card Act of 2008 has disallowed banks to engage with college students.
Founders

Michael Broughton
Founder

Ayush Jain
Founder

PigeonlyLas Vegas, NV, USA
The affordable way to search, find & communicate with an incarcerated…
Pigeonly is a subscription-based platform that makes it easy for people to search, find, and communicate with an incarcerated loved from anywhere in the world. Our technology cuts the cost of expensive prison calls by 80% and allows our customers to send their inmate printed photos, greeting cards, and more right from any cell phone, tablet, or computer.
At the core of the Pigeonly business is our proprietary inmate API, Haystac, that searches and organizes millions of Federal, State, and County records in real-time to determine the location of 2MM+ inmates across all prison facilities. This makes it possible for our users to easily search, find, and connect with their incarcerated loved one using one or all of our 6 consumer-facing products.
Pigoenly's target market usually has to settle for poor product design and is often the victim of predatory business practices. At Pigeonly, we focus on providing quality products at affordable prices; pair that with five-star customer service to achieve a superb customer experience never seen in the market. We understand just how important this is to our customer because we are our customer.
Founders

Alfonzo Brooks
CFLO

Frederick Hutson
CEO

Players' LoungeBrooklyn, NY, USA
Play video games against other people for money
Players’ Lounge is a video game wagering platform that allows gamers to bet on the outcome of their own matches, solo or with friends. Tap a button and you’re connected to an opponent to play your favorite video game against, for money.
A very small percentage of gamers are making a ton of money playing professionally, but there are millions of gamers who want to make money playing video games as well. Players' Lounge is giving this opportunity to everyone.
Founders

Austin Woolridge
Founder

Dan Delaney
CTO

Zach Dixon
Founder

PromiseOakland, CA, USA
Promise helps government agencies better meet the needs of people in…
We get people out of jail and provide ongoing support and supervision to help keep them out.
Promise provides a cost-effective, more humane alternative to incarceration by extending the capabilities of community supervision, improving long-term outcomes for individuals and communities.
Learn more at joinpromise.com
Founders

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
Founder

Diana Frappier
Founder

PykaOakland, CA, USA
Pilotless, short takeoff and landing electric airplanes for urban…
We develop autonomous electric aircraft to provide people with an affordable and compelling alternative to ground transit. We make hyper-short takeoff and landing autonomous electric aircraft. Today, we’re using our aircraft to protect crops with fully automated aerial sprays in order to obtain the flight hours, technical readiness, and scale required for human transportation.
Founders

Kyle Moore
Founder

Michael Norcia
CEO

Chuma Ogunwole
COO

Nathan White
CEO

PyxaiBoston, MA, USA
Technology to help organizations and individuals develop soft skills.
Talent Acquisition: By screening all applicants, Pyxai helps companies eliminate unintended biases in the hiring process and identifies talent that would otherwise be overlooked. Pyxai screens every applicant with open-ended, situational judgement tests and provide a report back to the recruiter. Identifying and extracting soft skills like communication, critical thinking, and grit provides holistic insight into an applicant and is a better indicator of long-term job success.
Talent Development: Soft skills and culture evaluations produces gap analysis that are supported with personalized soft skill micro-lessons - to strengthen individuals in your organization.
We work with leading soft skill psychologists and years of research data to power our models.
More than ever, the human and emotional quotients are playing a key role in organizations and we aim to enhance the human edge with soft skills.
Founders

Angela Edwards
Founder

Kurt Edwards
Founder

QwestLos Angeles, CA, USA
Marketplace for social clubs
Qwest is a marketplace for individuals to connect with like-minded people while accessing popular places and events through joining social clubs.
We provide a platform for social clubs to build, engage, grow and sell memberships. We help social clubs provide perks to their community like skip lines, table access, free entry and universal access to other clubs.
We help creatives, entrepreneurs, and professionals find community while conveniently going out to popular events, bars, clubs, and lounges
Founders

Brandon Stokes
Founder

Andre Woodley Jr
Founder

RamaniDar es Salaam, Tanzania
We help African distributors manage their inventory, operations and…
An app for salespeople to track inventory, register their customers and record their sales transactions.
5 national beta customers transacting with 380 merchants; $80k worth of sales recorded
~2m distributors @ $50/month - $1.2B market opportunity
Cofounders: Brothers. African. Ex-Salesforce PM, Stanford CS, Capgemini
Founders

Calvin Usiri
Founder

Iain Usiri
Founder

ReleafAkwa Ibom, Nigeria
Selling quality crops to African food factories using novel hardware.
Releaf develops novel industrial processing technology for African crops. Our pre-processing technology allows us to improve the quality and scale of raw materials provided to African food factories (>$200B market), 90% of which run under 50% of their installed capacity, primarily due to scarce quality raw materials.
We target domestic demand in industries where we can develop pre-processing technology to increase the amount of addressable, quality raw material we can source directly from farmers, giving us a leg-up on competitors who rely on inconsistent traders with variable quality.
The goal is to catalyze agro-based industrialization across the continent - no phenomena in the history of the world has moved more people out of extreme poverty and into shared prosperity than industrialization.
Founders

Uzoma Ayogu
CTO

Kenna Nzewi
CEO

Isaiah Udotong
CGO

Reliance HealthLagos, Nigeria
Reliance Health uses technology, insurance and clinical care to make…
Reliance Health uses technology and data science to build an integrated health system that includes affordable health insurance, telemedicine and a combination of partner and proprietary healthcare facilities. This allows it to offer innovative healthcare solutions that meet the needs of emerging markets starting with Africa.
Founders

Matthew Mayaki
CTO

Femi Kuti, MD
CEO

Opeyemi Olumekun
Founder

RemixSan Francisco, CA, USA
We’re building a platform to empower cities to plan the best possible…
Remix’s mission is to help build more livable cities. Our software helps city planners understand their communities and design transportation systems that serve them. We’ve partnered with over 325 cities across 20 countries on 4 continents — and were continually seeking to grow our impact around the world.
Urban planning impacts everything from economic mobility to CO2 emissions, and our platform empowers local governments to transform their transportation systems, design safer streets, and implement new mobility options to better serve their communities.
Founders

Tiffany Chu
COO

Daniel Getelman
CTO

Sam Hashemi
CEO

Danny Whalen
Founder

REZINew York, NY, USA
Rent Better
REZI is the only fully automated apartment marketplace for long-term rentals. Our entirely automated leasing process means our users can find, self-tour and lease their next apartment in as little as 5 minutes
Founders

Keenan D. Williams
President

Sean Mitchell
Chairman & CEO

Harsh Yadav
CTO at REZI

ROSS IntelligenceSan Francisco, CA, USA
ROSS is an AI-powered legal research platform that can read and…
Founded by two computer scientists and an attorney, our mission is to develop technologies that increase access to legal services around the world. We are going after the $8B legal research market with our AI-powered legal research platform that allows lawyers to research in 80% less time and find cases they would have otherwise missed. Today, we are helping lawyers and law firms, including some of the world's largest, offer better and more affordable service to clients.
Website: www.rossintelligence.com
Twitter: @rossintel
Founders

Andrew Arruda
CEO

Pargles Dall`Oglio
Founder

Jimoh Ovbiagele
Founder

Saratoga EnergyBerkeley, CA, USA
We sell better carbon nanotubes at one-twentieth the price. Carbon…
Founders

Drew Reid
Founder

SchoolableLagos, Nigeria
Tuition collection service for K-12 private schools in Africa
We are a financial technology company that is revolutionizing the state of pre-tertiary education in Africa.
By paying school fees for parents upfront with a flexible monthly repayment plan, building fees savings culture among parents, This way, schools get up to 80% of all their expected fees 2weeks into resumption and also enabling schools to access to loan facility and availability of various vendors and service providers at discounted rates.
Founders

Angela Essien
Founder

Henry Nnalue
CEO

SENDLagos, Nigeria
Flexport for Africa - Digital Freight forwarder and Customs Broker.
SEND is a digital freight forwarder and customs broker for Africa.
We manage the entire process of shipping cargo by air or by sea, including the documentation, customs process, delivery to the warehouse and trade financing.
Founders

Kingsley Oti
Founder

Larry Oti
Founder

ShoobsLondon, UK
We help you find and book tickets to great entertainment events that…
Shoobs offers event organiers with a convenient and powerful platform to sell tickets to their events
A couple of years ago we got thinking that selling tickets should be QUICK & EASY!
So, we decided to create Shoobs to help event organisers sell out their events efficiently!
Organisers, this means you can catch up on sleep whilst we do the hard work for you!
We believe in offering a fair and transparent service and are always here to help!
Founders

Louise Broni-Mensah
Founder

Sinovia TechnologiesSan Carlos, CA, USA
Flexible printed OLED displays.
We use the printing methods used for newspapers, packaging, posters, and other graphic media to make beautiful, emissive electronic displays with high-end OLED technology aimed at low-cost applications. Our displays are paper-thin, flexible, and can be easily custom printed in a variety of shapes and sizes, allowing hardware designers to use displays and indicators on curved surfaces and in new ways.
Founders

George Burkhard
CTO

Whitney Gaynor
President & CEO

SIRUMPalo Alto, CA, USA
SIRUM is a “match.com” for unused medicine. We connect institutional…
SIRUM uses technology to connect, prioritize and simplify various sources of medicine. We help safety-net clinics access this medicine for their patients.
SIRUM is an innovative nonprofit organization committed to reducing barriers to health for underserved populations. Incubated at Stanford University, SIRUM draws from the academic and technology expertise of faculty and alumni to strengthen its impact and efficiency.
SIRUM has become a leader in prescription drug donations, providing consulting and technical assistance to county governments, community clinics and multiple drug donor groups to establish redistribution programs
Founders

Kiah J. Williams
Founder

Adam Kircher
Founder

George Wang
Director
Smart AltoBirmingham, AL, USA
Easiest way to set appointments with real estate leads
Founders

Hassan Riggs
CEO

Wayne Anderson
COO

SocialcamSan Francisco, CA, USA
The easiest way to share videos with friends and family.
Socialcam is a new mobile video application coming to both iPhone and Android. Socialcam makes it fast, easy and fun to capture, share and view high quality movies of life's moments with friends and family.
Founders

Michael Seibel
Founder

Ammon Bartram
Founder

Guillaume Luccisano
Founder

Squire TechnologiesNew York, NY, USA
Platform to grow your barbershop and maximize profitability.
Squire is a booking and payment platform that connects people with great barbers nationwide. Squire makes it easy to discover and book the best barbers wherever you are, in just a few taps.
Squire is also the premier management platform for barbershops. Using Squire, barbers are able to engage their customers, process bookings and payments and better market their business through Squire’s “barbershop discovery” capabilities. Fully integrated with a point of sale, inventory management and payroll systems, Squire is a one-stop solution for barbershop owners to efficiently operate their business.
With headquarters in New York and a presence in major cities in the United States and Canada, Squire has quickly become a market leader in technology solutions for the barbershop industry nationwide.
For more information, please visit getsquire.com or download the Squire iOS app from the App Store.
Founders

Songe LaRon
CEO

Dave Salvant
President

SwipeAccra, Ghana
Cash management and credit for Africa's fast growth companies.
Swipe is a YC-backed cash management and digital lending platform focused on African SMBs. We are a fast-growing fintech company offering working- capital in the form of a flexible credit line to boost cashflow and as well a suite of tools to help them manage their business' finance.
Founders

Jesse Ahin Ghansah
Founder

Tambua HealthSan Francisco, CA, USA
We are developing a device – " called T-Sense", that uses sound to…
Founders

Daniel Gathigai
Founder

Eric Kirima
Founder

Lewis Wanjohi
Founder

tEQuitableOakland, CA, USA
tEQuitable's mission is to create work culture that works for everyone
tEQuitable helps companies get in front of and prevent harassment.
We are an independent, confidential platform to address issues of bias, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace.
For employees, we provide a sounding board they can consult without fear of retribution on issues ranging from subtle, insidious slights and invalidations to overt discrimination and harassment.
For companies, we provide data and insights to identify systemic issues, track behavioral trends, and develop actionable recommendations.
tEQuitable is using technology to make workplaces more equitable.
Founders

Lisa Gelobter
CEO

TermiiLagos, Nigeria
Termii is Twilio for Africa.
Termii is a communications platform that allows African businesses send messages to anyone across sms, email, voice and instant messaging channels. With Termii businesses can;
1. Verify customer identity & transactions
2. Send product notifications to customers
3. Generate personality and engagement insights from customer transactions
Founders

Emmanuel Gbolade
Founder

Ayomide Awe
Founder

The Mercer ClubNew York, NY, USA
The Mercer Club is a subscription service that allows men to rent…
The Mercer Club is e-commerce's first-ever men’s rental service offering luxury and streetwear fashions at affordable pricing— think of it as Rent the Runway for men. Founded on the principle that fashion should be affordable and accessible, The Mercer Club aims to deliver an assortment of clothing, shoes and accessories to fulfill all a man's wardrobe needs, helping them stay on trend while considering their budget. Customers can rent pieces from well-known streetwear brands such as Yeezy, Nike and Supreme or luxury designers such as Gucci, Margiela, Acne and Balenciaga for as little as $25 a day or a monthly subscription for $75 a month. With the subscription plan, renters get 2 items at a time and swap out each week for another set of 2 items. The process is seamless from beginning to end— after placing an order, items arrive in 2-3 days in a custom box with a prepaid return shipping label. Our specialized team takes care of any laundering on your behalf and minor wear and tear is covered by us.
Founders

Chike Achebe
Founder

Travis Ezidiegwu
Founder

Tyreek Griffith
Founder
ThereCraftLos Angeles, CA, USA
Founders

Star Simpson
Founder

Thrive AgricAbuja, Nigeria
Thrive Agric helps Farmers in Africa access finance, insight and FMCGS
Founders

Ayodeji Arikawe
Founder

Uka Eje
Founder

TipeSan Francisco, CA, USA
Open-source, customizable, headless CMS
Tipe allows teams to edit, preview, and publish content for their apps. You can use tipe to change static content to dynamic, allow non-technical team members to edit anything. They can then preview those changes and get feedback before publishing. All of this is set up in less than 3 minutes from your developer.
Founders

Scott Moss
CEO

Michael Moss
CPO

Patrick Stapleton
CTO

TitanNew York, NY, USA
Titan is the new BlackRock. We build, manage, and explain investment…
Titan is the new BlackRock. We build, manage, and explain investment funds. Anyone who would like Titan to invest their money can download our mobile app, link their bank, and transfer capital. We currently have two financial strategies (Large Cap and Small/Mid Cap US Equities) and will be launching more. Users have described us as "a hedge fund in their pocket."
Founders

Clayton Gardner
Founder

Joe Percoco
Founder

Max Bernardy
CTO

ToDesktopCork, Ireland
ToDesktop is an all-in-one platform for building and releasing…
Founders

Dave Jeffery
Founder

Todos ComemosBogota, Colombia
TodosComemos is the first ready-to-cook meal kit delivery service in…
TodosComemos is a marketplace where you can buy premade meal ingredients that transform the way you cook. We seek that our users save time and stress, while being able to prepare lots of new dishes in simple steps.
Serving over 15 hundred homes in Bogota and Ciudad de Mexico, we are growing 2x every month in revenue in an overlooked market.
We eliminate traditional intermediaries and long cooking experiences, connecting food production centers (and their pre-made meal ingredients) directly with customers.
Founders

Santiago Espinosa M
Founder

mateo cardenas
Founder

ToolboxSan Francisco, CA, USA
On-demand labor marketplace for skilled construction workers
Toolbox is building a better future of work for the 9M skilled construction workers earning over $300B in wages. Through our worker-centric labor marketplace, construction workers can showcase their background, secure full-time jobs, reduce their downtime through short-term gigs, and access basic financial services.
Construction workers get access to a mobile app to highlight their professional experience, keep track of their licenses and certifications, secure jobs and on-demand gigs. and can access direct, online payments for their work.
Contractors and building owners can use our platform to reduce project delays by securing experienced tradespeople and skilled laborers for their projects.
Founders

Wil Eyi
Founder

Jose Pons Vega
Founder

TorchSan Francisco, CA, USA
Torch is a learning and development company that helps employers manage and measure employee growth at scale. Customers can draw from a pool of over 6000 mentors and coaches to pair with high performers and new managers at any layer of the organization.
Torch was founded by a team of executive coaches and experienced psychologists who are passionate about helping all professionals perform at their highest level.
Torch is on a mission to empower managers to thrive in high growth, high-performance cultures by building the self-awareness and skills required to manage and lead effectively.
Founders

Keegan Walden
COO

Cameron Yarbrough
CEO

treble.aiBogotá, Bogota, Colombia
Founders

Wilson Daniel Martinez
Founder

Felipe Otálora
Founder

Sebastián Valencia
Founder

TruoraCali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia
Reliable background checks & fraud prevention tools for Latin America.
Truora provides safe and reliable background checks and fraud prevention services for Latin America, through APIs and web service solutions.
We operate in 6 countries (Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Brazil and Chile) and are expanding rapidly.
Our customers include Latam's top martketplaces (i.e. Didi, Rappi, Liftit), FinTech startups, large financial institutions and large HR firms as well.
Our software allows for: background check verifications, continuous identity verification, digital identity solutions, OCR technologies and document authentication, KYC solutions and biometric validations.
Our team is composed of 4 founders with expertise in the security and fraud prevention, as well as 60+ expert software engineers. We have offices across Latam, with our tech teams based in Colombia.
Founders

Daniel Bilbao
Founder

David Cuadrado
Founder

Maite Muniz Telleria
Founder

Cesar Pino
Founder

TwitchSan Francisco, CA, USA
A global community creating the future of live entertainment.
Twitch is the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers. More than 100 million gamers gather every month to broadcast, watch and chat about gaming. Twitch’s video platform is the backbone of live and on-demand distribution for leading video game broadcasters including casual gamers, pro players, tournaments, leagues, developers and gaming media organizations. Twitch is leading a revolution in the gaming community, working to create a participatory experience that transcends gameplay. Learn more at http://twitch.tv.
Founders

Justin Kan
Founder

Michael Seibel
Founder

Emmett Shear
Founder

Kyle Vogt
Founder

VertoFXLondon, UK
Cross-Border Payments and FX Simplified
VertoFX helps businesses of any size make international payments safely, simply and timely.
By connecting Businesses, Liquidity providers, FX Brokers, and Payment Institutions, and banks through our marketplace, companies can choose their foreign exchange rates at the time that suits them, therefore, providing a constant liquidity flow cheaply.
Founders

Anthony Oduwole
Founder

Ola Oyetayo
Founder

Vitable HealthPhiladelphia, PA, USA
Affordable primary and urgent care health coverage
We're an on-demand healthcare coverage company that provides acute and preventative coverage to the 40 million uninsured and 38 million under-insured Americans. We've rethought how healthcare should work by vertically integrating acute care. We send our Board-Certified providers directly to our members' homes, places of work, or via telemedicine, providing a transformative healthcare experience and dramatically lowering the cost of providing acute and preventative care. To make this new care-delivery model possible, technology is at the heart of everything we do.
Founders

Joseph Kitonga
Founder

VoriEast Palo Alto, CA, USA
Vori is a b2b wholesale app that streamlines ordering for…
Vori makes ordering dead simple for local supermarkets with a streamlines mobile wholesale marketplace where grocers can order for any department of their store--from dairy to dry goods to alcohol.
Founders

Brandon Hill
Founder

Tre Kirkman
Founder

Robert Pinkerton
Founder

WalletsLagos, Nigeria
Wallets is a modern digital banking app for Africans.
Wallets Africa is a borderless digital bank for Africa. By placing a large emphasis on providing a seamless experience to users and building on new payments infrastructure, we are building a platform that makes it easier for people - Africans and foreigners - to spend locally across the continent without having to create an account with a local bank.
Founders

John Oke
Founder

WeatherCheck201 E Jefferson St, Louisville, KY 40202, USA
WeatherCheck monitors properties for hail damage so that insurance…
WeatherChecks application tells anyone when severe hail is about to strike and when it has in fact impacted a property. Using state of the science technologies we compute and analyze geo-weather data faster than every weather company globally. This allows companies, insurance companies specifically to gain dynamic insight into their overall exposure and enabling them to respond more quickly and efficiently to disaster.
Founders

Jermaine Watkins
Founder

Demetrius Gray
Founder

WindsorSan Francisco, CA, USA
One place for all your user data
Windsor lets companies explore their user data in realtime for analytics and customer support
Founders

Pranay Prakash
CEO

Andrew Faust
Founder

WorkPayNairobi, Kenya
HR and payroll processing for SMBs in Africa
WorkPay provides SMBs in Africa with tools for time tracking, payroll processing, and salary disbursement to banks and mobile wallets.
Founders

Paul Kimani
Founder

Jackson Kibigo Kungu
Founder

YSplitMountain View, CA, USA
We splits expenses automatically for housemates so that they only pay…
Founders

Boateng Opoku-Yeboah
Founder

Landon Vago-Hughes
Founder

Tunde Alao
Founder

ZenithEl Cerrito, CA 94530, USA
We're bringing Ready Player One to life with a massively multiplayer…
Have you heard of Ready Player One? Well, we're building it for real people:
Ramen VR is building the next reality featuring an infinite universe where millions of people can build new lives together in a gorgeous, cyberpunk and inspired world. We're starting with a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game that is cross platform for VR, desktop, and console.
Zenith had the most successful virtual reality gaming kickstarter ever, crowdfunding over $280,000 dollars in a little over a month.
Lauren and Andy have decades of combined technical and product leadership experience at both big tech, and gaming companies, like Unity, Google, OpenFeint, and GREE.
We're backed by some of the most notable people in gaming and VC, including the Twitch COO Kevin Lin, Kabam Cofounder Holly Liu, Paul Graham, and the Maker's Fund.
Founders

Lauren Frazier
Founder

Andy Tsen
Founder

ZeroStorefrontSan Mateo, CA, USA
We are a customer engagement platform for local businesses.
We connect applications to drive more orders and better customer experiences. The typical restaurant now uses more than two dozen different applications to run their business and we connect them. Specifically, we focus on data aggregation, customer attribution, and workflow automation. Our customers include brands like Frank Pepe’s, Halal Guys, and more.
Founders

Ashutosh Joshi
Founder

Collin Wallace
CEO