Ten Nigerian Startups, selected for utilising hardware and deep technology tools in their businesses will be travelling through five Asian cities pitching their businesses to investors in the Asian technology ecosystem and forging partnerships to scale.
The journey is part of 2019 PitchDrive Asia Tour Stories, which happens to be the second edition of Co-Creation Hub’s PitchDrive tech tour, and is sponsored by MainOne, Sterling Bank and other partners.
During the tour, (co)founders will interact with deep tech and hardware communities in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China and Hong Kong, engage in pitch events with Asian tech giants such as Tencent and Transsion, and seek out collaborations, partnerships and potential investment opportunities to help them further grow and scale their businesses.
“We find that there’s a lot of interest from Asia in Africa and we believe there are opportunities for collaboration that could help strengthen the hardware and deep tech ecosystem in Africa,” says Damilola Teidi, Director of Incubation at CcHub.
Also commenting, Tayo Ashiru, Head Marketing at MainOne, said: “MainOne’s interest in sponsoring the tour in borne out of our deep commitment to enable the tech startup ecosystem across Africa with a view towards ensuring that services and skills developed locally will have access to capital and partners required to scale their businesses to reach a broader market.”
PitchDrive Tour Stories will curate the tour on-the-go and in a documentary production to be released at the end of the tour. The documentary will shed light on the entrepreneurial journeys of each of the founders and as they interact with the technology scene and culture of Asia.
The participating startups come from seven African countries and work in a diverse range of sectors. They include: Moroccan safety IoT device company Casky; Rwandan smart transport solution company, AC Group; Nigeria’s Gricd, a cold chain technology for transportation of healthcare and agricultural produce; Access Afya, a Kenyan primary healthcare social enterprise using technology to deliver affordable and effective health access; Ugandan CHIL AI Lab which leverages AI to improve cancer diagnostic services; and taeillo, a Nigerian furniture and design company leveraging mixed reality to improve customer experience.
Others include Enova Robotics from Tunisia which specialises in mobile robot development for security purposes; Flare, a Kenyan uber-like company which aggregates ambulance/emergency options for easy access; LIFI-LED, an Ivorian energy startup providing electricity and internet connectivity to difficult-to-access communities, and Nigeria’s Reliance HMO, which employs a consortium of tools to make health insurance accessible and affordable.