Kenyan firms line up strong pitches at tech fair

Delegates at a Demo Africa technology conference in Nairobi in 2013. PHOTO | FILE 

By MBUGUA NJIHIA

This year’s edition of DemoAfrica, the launchpad of emerging technology and trends is happening over the next two days in Lagos, Nigeria.

It was preceded by an investor meeting of the African Business Angel Network, “a pan-African
non-profit association founded to support the development of early stage investor networks across the continent and to get many more early stage investors excited about the opportunities in Africa”.

This year saw the selection of a smaller number of companies to make the stage for their six minute pitch. Kenya as per expectation has good representation with retail and finance striking a chord for the local cohort, perhaps a pointer to where the action is.

Shield Finance is providing low interest salary advances via mobile money to the underserved community of employees in private businesses, de-risking the employers and providing them a tear free way to maintain productivity.

BambaPOS are empowering retail merchants to access point of sale and inventory management automation from any android smart device with an added benefit of connecting online stores to the same brick and motor inventory.

ENT-Mobile are powering business processes using conversations from social and mobile platforms to derive quantifiable data.

Think of automation of customer service handling thousands of simultaneous requests to get a feel of the value of their first service offering.

LipaPlus is a provider of point of sale and business data analytics aimed at improving the business operations and day- to- day management of SMB’s a largely ignored demography responsible a big percentage of daily sales.

BitSoko have taken a dive into remittances using block chain technology to reduce the cost of peer to peer transfers as well as service payments. This area has attracted a lot of attention lately due to its disruptive potential.

Investors

Abacus is helping investors make smarter, faster decisions by providing access to real time market data, news and analytics; essentially taking the guesswork out of investing, a step up from Wazua a community powered ecosystem that succeeded StocksKenya.

Insureafrika, through their online platform are bringing transparency to the insurance industry currently controlled by agents who often times fail to highlight fine print or give subjective analysis of competing product.

They close the loop from comparison to actual policy purchase.

These are all high potential businesses and great options for investment for both the novice and seasoned investor looking to grow their technology portfolio.

Mr Njihia is CEO of Symbiotic | www.mbuguanjihia.com | @mbuguanjihia