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Kigali

STARTUP REPORT 2017

the land of a thousand hills.

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Using technology to skip industrialisation and build a knowl-edge-based economy is at the core of Rwanda’s Vision 2020 Government development program – if it succeeds, Rwanda will be a middle-income country by 2020. While there is a way to go to hit this target, the economy has grown at 6% last year, and The 2017 World Bank Doing Business Report has ranked Rwanda 2nd in Africa after Mauritius.

As you know skills, services, technolo-gy, knowledge -- these really render be-ing landlocked more or less irrelevant and also coupled by other factors like integration. We so much insist on integration

Paul Kagame at KLab, one of Kigali’s technology hubs.

Paul Kagame

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Rwanda’s now peaceful views with patches of various shades of green are a stark contrast to the tumultuous past that the country is often associated with. Exactly twenty-three years ago, decades of ethnic-fueled tensions culmi-nated in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi. In the span of 100 days an estimated 800,000 people were

killed and hundreds of thousands more fled the country. Rwanda’s ethnic divisions spanned across decades and created divisions amongst the population long before 1994.

It is hard to deny that Rwanda is one of the most beautiful countries in Africa. The Land of a Thousand Hills has come a long way since 1994 and it’s capital city Kigali is becoming a bustling hub for tech entrepreneurs.

Paradise with 4g

It is difficult to comprehending the impressive progress Rwanda has made in the last couple of decades. Just 23 years ago the country was left in disarray, with a large fraction of its population having fled or been killed; those remaining had witnessed mass death and betrayal. The country had to start again.

Densely populated, land-locked and with most of the population reliant on farming, President Paul Kagame sees the challenges Rwanda faces and aims to mold the country into the ‘Singapore of Africa’. Policy set out in 2000 says Rwanda will leapfrog industrialisation and become a middle-income, knowledge based economy by 2020.

While this might be seen as optimistic, the country is moving in the right direction. An 8% year on year GDP growth, Africa’s quickest growing internet user base, and a skyline that says ‘open for business’ all make Kigali an exciting place to try out new ideas. The city is unique in its surroundings, safe, uncorrupt and growing as one of east Africa’s leading startup hubs.

In this report we will look at the key factors that have pushed Rwanda in the direction it is heading today, as well as the current business landscape and why some of Kigali’s top startups chose this place for their home.

“the internet is a needed public utility as much as water and electricity”Paul Kagame

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The tea plantation on the edge of Nyungwe Forest

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Rwanda identified ICT as a key factor to transform into an information and knowledge driven economy. The GoR has established institutions and mechanisms to foster and encourage ICT development. Vision 2020, along with the National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) policy act as the guiding documents for the different planning and implementation stages of the developmental priorities relating to ICT for Rwanda through to year 2020.

The NICI aimed to fully digitalise the country over a span of 20 years; it is split into five year stages and was integrated into Vision 2020.

Stage 1(2000-2005): Prioritised the creation of institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks to create an enabling environment for ICT growth. Barriers to the telecom market were addressed and as a result, the number of internet users has grown from 25,000 in 2002, to over 1.2 million now.

Stage 2 (2006-2010): Focused on enhancing infrastructure and establishing a national data center as well as to lay fibre optic cables to connect the country to global networks. Rwanda’s internet users grew 8900% - 4x more than Africa’s growth rate. In addition, this stage fostered the mobile phone growth from 42,000 in 2000 to more than 3.5 million today.

Stage III (2011-2015): Prioritised services development by creating efficient Government services and increased pri-vate sector productivity. One example of this is the wide availability of affordable 4G networks.

Stage IV (2016-2020): Will prioritise strengthening the private sector, electronic government systems, and cyber-secu-rity.

In just 16 years, something which is still seen as a luxury in many parts of Africa is now seen as a basic right to urban Rwandans. Without the revolutionary thinking that prioritised the country’s digitalisation at this early stage, it is fair to say the startup ecosystem in Kigali could have looked a lot different to it how it does now.

The Government of Rwanda (GoR) spent the years immediately after the genocide trying to build peace, restore unity, and heal. After tremendous and impressive progress towards these goals, President Paul Kagame and the Government spent 1998 and 1999 intensely reflecting on the future of Rwanda. The years of internal reflec-

tion and external consultations culminated in detailed document of Rwanda’s long-term development path: Vision 2020.

GOVERNMENT POLICY & DIGITALISATION

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More than 70% of Rwanda’s population work in the agriculture sector and many of these people are low income with poor reading and writing skills. Vision 2020 aims to change this, driving the country towards a knowledge based economy, and middle-income status by 2020.

Rwanda has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, with a GDP growth of around 8% per year between 2001 and 2014. This growth has mainly been driven by investment in construction, and services, and although this is promising, a large amount of Government revenues still come from foreign aid - between 30-40%.

THE BUSINESS LANDSCAPE

CORE BUSINESS SECTORSTo understand where technology and startups can innovate, it is important to understand the current business con-text. Below are the key business sectors seen in Rwanda.

AgricultureAgriculture is the main economic activity in Rwanda, contributing to over a third of the country’s GDP. Popular crops grown in the country are coffee, tea and flowers - their export makes up almost 80% of Rwanda’s foreign earnings and many people survive from this sector.

Coffee is one of the most important cash crops, with around 500,000 households depending on its production - Arabica beans are 98% of all grown.

Investment opportunities can be seen in cash crop exports, ani-mal feeds processing, food preservation and distribution / cold chain infrastructure.

LOGISTICSRwanda is aiming to become east Africa’s trade logistics hub, and has just agreed a deal with Dubai Port World worth $40,000,000 to con-struct an inland container depot to the east of Kigali. The facility will provide vehicle parking, goods warehousing as well as supporting services, and will link the Northern and Central Corridors, allowing Rwandan importers and exporters to consolidate cargo.

Investment opportunities can be seen in digitalising logistics chains and last mile delivery solutions.

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TOURISMTourism is championed as one of Rwanda’s largest foreign revenue generators. It is difficult to get accurate statistics on this, but RDB say it generated over $300,000,000 in 2014. Most tourists come to visit the country’s mountain gorillas - some of the last surviving in the world - and some will make a trip to Nyungwe rainforest in the south as well as Akagera National Park in the East.

Investment opportunities in this sector include UAV mapping, localised accommodation portals (see hotels.ng in Nigeria), and vehicle rental.

ENERGYThe energy sector can be broken into two main components: elec-tricity (on and off grid) and cooking (traditional and clean). The GoR prioritises access to electricity and clean cooking energy, but current-ly only 20% of Rwandan households have access to electricity and 98% of the population is cooking with traditional (unclean) methods such as coal; the goal is to reach 70% energy access by 2018, and 80% clean cooking technology use by 2020. Off-grid technologies contribute only 2% to electricity provided and clean cooking solu-tions are currently not available at scale.

Investment opportunities can be seen in off grid renewable energy (mainly solar) and cooking energies (including wood pel-lets, biogass, and LPG).

INDUSTRYRwanda’s goal is to leapfrog industrialisation and move directly to a knowledge based economy. This sector is small, contribution just 15% to GDP in 2015, and is dominated by companies such as Bralir-wa and Skol making beverages, and a few smaller companies making basic consumer goods and simple construction materials.

This is an area where we see investment opportunities in streamlining value chains.

Gigawatt Global’s 8MW solar farm in Rwanda

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International aidWhile not technically a business sector per se, non-for-profit and international government organisations play a large role in supporting this country - foreign Aid investment accounts for 25% of the GDP, and in 2014 was said to be $14,200,000.

While the Government has made outstanding achievements in respect to digitalisation, growth, and poverty reduc-tion, there is no question that the country’s violent past has taken its toll, and many people living within rural areas are dependent on Aid to survive.

International Aid does flow into the for-profit sector in Rwanda as well (see Startup Support). There are no numbers showing exactly how much is put into for-profit projects but there is a strong shift toward Aid supporting business’ - social impact can often be more sustainable and scalable when run this way.

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPSPPPs are becoming increasingly common in Rwanda - examples can be seen in the energy sector where upfront costs, operations and maintenance are transferred from the state to a private investor, and the investor gets steady cash-flow from the country’s commitment to buy the energy created.

A recent successful PPP, 60km east of Kigali, is the 8.5 megawatt solar farm built in 2014 by Gigawatt Global. Within 12 months of a deal being agreed between the company and the Government, the $24,000,000 project was complete and connected to the grid - this was the fastest project of its type in Africa.

There are many investment opportunities in renewable energy PPPs - Rwanda has 110 megawatts on the grid for a population of 12,000,000; Israel has 13,000 megawatts for 8,000,000 people. Also in the medical sector where further digitalisation is needed.

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why is rwanda attractive to new businesses?Rwanda’s popularity with people looking to set up in east Africa, can be attributed to a number of factors - the key ones can be seen below.

ease of doing businessRwanda is ranked second in Africa, after Mauritius, in the 2017 World Bank Doing Business Report, and 56th Globally. This report focuses on aspects such as ease of starting a business, obtaining permits, getting credit and paying taxes, many of which can now be done online.

One of the easiest tasks when setting up is registering a company, which can be done through RDB’s online portal in a matter of hours. Whether it is to register a local limited company, or a foreign company subsidiary, the process is quick, simple and free.

Rwanda is also the easiest country in Africa to get credit - in fact it is said to be as easy as it is in the USA, according to the World Bank Doing Business Report. It is not only banks offering credit - mobile loans from telecommunications companies (MTN) and micro-financing organisations (Kiva) are available to support early stage companies.

Once registered and operating, trading and moving across the EAC is pretty easy. With a work permit in Rwanda it is possible to travel to Kenya or Uganda for free without a visa. USD currency can be used throughout East Africa.

Investor certificateTo become the ‘Singapore of Africa’, Rwanda needs to be attractive to international businesses and investors. One way they are trying to do this is through their Investor Certificate scheme, where if a company is found to be in a ‘key priority sector’ such as exports, energy or ICT, they will have access to a number of incentives to work in the country.

There is no minimum capital requirements for new investors, but applicants must show they are creating quality jobs, transferring skills / knowledge, and innovating a space.

Incentives include:

- Ease of obtaining visas and work permits.

- An account manager to provide support.

- Preferential corporate income tax of 0-15% (subject to requirements).

- Corporate income tax holiday of up to 7 years (subject to requirements).

- Capital gains tax exemption and VAT refunds.

Low Corruption RatesCorruption in Rwanda is very low, meaning even a minor traffic violation could end up going through a digital system and then being made payable via Visa card at the side of the road. This is very different to other major hubs such as Lagos or Nairobi, and makes the country a very straightforward place to do business.

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current state of infrastructure

NB, While Rwanda is generally an easy place to do business, it is important to be very clear when getting local assistance in setting up a technology focused company. Although the landscape is evolving, the lack of mature companies focused on technical innovation means that sometimes the supporting network at RDB don’t understand fully how to best help you.

Kigali has come a long way in the last few years. On our first trip in 2012, it was very much under construction with a half-built skyline and red dirt roads. 2017 is a different story, and the city is now home to some of east Africa’s prime real estate, with Kigali Heights (leading office and retail space) sitting next to the new conference centre in the newly master planned heart of the city.

4g internetIn 2016, a number of suppliers started offering 4G internet services. While they can be temperamental at times, and considerably more expensive than in Europe (starting at around $100 per month), this is leaps ahead of most of the continent, and price / reliability is improving.

POWER SUPPLYRwanda has suffered an energy supply deficit over the last few years, but this looks like it is about to change with foreign investment in gas and renewable energy. The KivuWatt power plant uses methane found in Lake Kivu to gen-erate 25 megawatts (will grow to 100 megawatts by 2020), and Ignite Power Ltd has agreed to invest $50,000,000 into off-grid energy solutions over the next 5 years.

For now, in Kigali the electricity is pretty stable and nearly all office buildings have generators to support the grid when needed.

ROADSIn the last few years, Kigali has gone from a city with mostly dirt roads, to one with mainly paved surfaces, including dual carriageways in places. This transpires outside of the capital city too, with all major roads to key cities and border posts paved.

OFFICE SPACEUp until this year, most offices were ran out of large houses - including some embassies - but this has all changed in the last couple of months. With large developers investing heavily in building premium office space such as Kigali Heights, the Government has started to force businesses out of makeshift house offices and into these new purpose built towers. This is a point of contention with many small companies as they are having to pay up to $25 per square metre for a space serving the same purpose as a house office costing as little as $5 per square metre.

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Silicon Valley startup Zipline is testing blood

deliveries in Rwanda

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More and more startups are popping up around Kigali every day - it is easy to see why with the infrastructure available and opportunity to use Rwanda as a relatively controlled market to test in before scaling up into other parts of east Africa.

THE STARTUP SCENE

HUBS AND COWORKING SPACESAs a result of this growth in early stage businesses, we are seeing strong development in supporting services, with early stage business hubs playing a large role in this support.

KLABkLab is Rwanda’s largest technology innovation hub. Based in Ka-cyiru, it is mainly frequented by young Rwandan developers, and has helped mold some of the country’s most successful technology start-ups such as Safe Motos and Mergims. kLab often has guest speakers, as well as pitch days, and is a great starting point to get a feel for what the Kigali startup scene has to offer.

THE OFFICEMoving from Kacyiru to Kiyovu and you will find The Office. Their aim is to bring a diverse mix of people together to learn, share, explore and chal-lenge each other, all under the roof of a vibrant, modular, work space. These offices inhabit a mixture of Rwandan and expat companies - the building also has a rooftop coffee bar, that is regularly hosting talks and events.

FABLABSituated in the same building as kLab, Fablab is Rwanda’s first digital fabrication lab, with the aim to help young designers visualise their ideas. Developed in partnership with Solidworks Corporation and MIT, Fablab was launched in May 2016 and gives entrepreneurs ac-cess to design software and 3D printers.

IMPACT HUBOne notable space within The Office is Impact Hub, a coworking space and startup community. The space is home to individuals and companies with an interest in social change, and often has events that discuss and challenge the status quo.

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ACCELERATORS AND CURRENT INVESTORSAlthough there are no full-time technology accelerators or incubators in Kigali yet, the signs are looking good, and there have been a number of successful ‘pop-up’ schemes in the country in the last few years.

THINK (TIGO)In 2014 and 2015, Tigo ran Rwanda’s first technology incubator called Think. It had over 150 applications in its first year from startups across Africa wanting to attend the 6 month programme with a $10,000 investment given to 5 startups. While the outcome wasn’t the most successful, this was generally down to bad management, and their is talk that Think will run again in the next year.

FACE THE GORILLASFace the Gorillas is Kigali’s version of Shark Tank or Dragon’s Den. In 2015 the panel included Israeli and African inves-tors, and while it looked a success (you can find videos of the pitches on YouTube), it has been revealed that some fi-nancial commitments were not lived up to. FTG 2017 will be held at the Transform Africa Summit in May, with a focus on startups innovating around ‘Smart Cities’.

SEEDSTARSIn December 2016, Seedstars World hosted its final event of their Africa tour in Kigali. The event was a 2 day boot-camp and was won by Kasha, a mobile platform that sells and discreetly delivers women’s health products. The Kasha team will now represent Rwanda in the finals in Geneva where there is a $1,000,000 equity investment available to the winners.

INNOVATION CITYAnnounced in May 2016 at the World Economic Forum on Africa, Kigali Innovation City will be an ecosystem of tech-nology focused companies and institutes, aiming to innovate and deliver products / services to global markets.

While the plan is grand, works have begun, and Carnegie Mellon University has already started operating from the site, 30 minutes outside of Kigali. Ericsson has also committed to joining them and the government has said it will be a startup friendly environment with affordable coworking spaces and the opportunity for early stage companies to get support from larger technology corporations based on site.

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STARTUP SUPPORTSupport comes from both the private and public sectors, usually in the format of soft financial loans, however startup mentoring schemes are becoming more prominent and often funded by international development agencies.

INKOMOKOInkomoko is an organisation that helps early stage businesses in Rwanda by supporting their founders in business operations. They offer training and mentorship, and when a company is ready to scale they help with documenta-tion, branding and financial services. They work with companies from a variety of sectors including energy, education, ICT and professional services. This year the organisation partnered with Bank of Kigali to offer interest free loans to startups.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIESGrant money and support is also available for social enter-prises through agencies such as the Netherland’s RVO and Sweden’s SIDA. These agencies usually focus on a business sector and then support local actors within this sector, or give support to entrepreneurs from their country who are looking to set up in Rwanda.

The Rwanda Business Accelerator (RBA) was a €500,000 partnership between Educat and Sida that ran from October 2013 through to March 2015, providing 100 entrepreneurs in Rwanda with 6 months of acceleration that struck a strategic balance of coaching, mentorship, and training ses-sions, tailor-made to meet contextual needs and challenges.

The RBA was based around the Accelerator Triangle model – the belief that the combination of access to knowledge (skills sessions), access to expertise (in-house mentorship/coaching and technical expertise) and access to finance, delivered together, provide the best framework for business acceleration. Via extensive individualised support through-out the programme, the Rwanda Business Accelerator supported SMEs in maturing and becoming ready to access finance, ensuring that those who did access finance lever-aged the investment as much as possible and minimised their chance of default.

GROFINAt the end of 2015, this financial support organisation opened applications across Africa for their $100,000,000 Small and Growing Businesses fund. Their goal is to support nearly 10,000 businesses, creating 50,000 sustainable jobs by the end of 2017.

Transform Africa Summit 2015

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TRANSFORM AFRICA SUMMITTransform Africa is a bi-annual 3 day event held in Kigali that is designed to ‘foster constructive conversation towards building a Smart Africa’ and has a focus on using ICT to accelerate sustainable market growth. It was started in 2013 and includes 17 African member states.

TAS 2017This year the summit will take place from 10th - 12th May. The focus will be on ‘Smart Cities’, and how to leverage technology to improve efficiency of cities, looking at key topics such as public WiFi, public transport solutions and cashless payments.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM PREVIOUS YEARSIn 2015 TAS was themed ‘Accelerating Digital Innovation’ and looked at how to learn from the past few years, and accelerate the continent’s digital growth. There were discussions on the Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and Big Data, as well as a hugely entertaining Face the Gorillas (think Shark tank or Dragon’s Den).

In 2013 TAS had the theme ‘The Future Delivered Today’ and focused on how Africa could use digital connectivity (particularly broadband) to transform communities, governments and the private sector.

Smart Africa, the organisation that hosts TAS, has promised to raise $300 Billion in ICT investments in Africa by 2020.

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The Kigali Convention Center lit up at night

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Case studies

The whole idea of being innovative isn’t national, but it is global, it is not confined to Rwanda, but

within that there is the Rwandan portion

a look a some of kigali’s best

Paul Kagame

In this section, we talk with a selection of Kigali’s top startups to get their opinion on the market, why they chose it as a base and where they see sectors progressing in the future.

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What problem does your startup solve and how are you solving it?

EarthEnable installs healthy and affordable floors for the 80% of Rwandans who can only afford to live and sleep on dirt floors. We sell a proprietary floor that is 80-90% cheaper than cement, with 90% less embedded energy.

What inspired you to start your company?

Dirt floors are a ubiquitous, but totally unsolved, problem that billions of people face. We learned about earthen floors through a class I took as an MBA at Stanford (Design for Extreme Affordability) in partnership with the MASS Design Group. Upon realizing that there was already an affordable solution to such a widespread problem, we had no choice but to give it a shot.

What did you do before this venture and was it successful?

I was a management consultant at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, and then a joint MBA (at Stanford) and MPA/ID (at Harvard). This is my first venture.

What do you love about the Kigali startup scene?

It’s a very collaborative and innovative group of people in the scene. We learn a lot from each other, and go out of our way to help each other.

Why Kigali not Nairobi or Dar es Salaam?

Rwanda is densely populated, with a higher percentage of dirt floors than Tanzania and Kenya. The business friend-ly environment along with these demographic advantages made it a compelling place to launch.

Name: Gayatri Datar

Role: CEO and Co-Founder

Contact: [email protected]

Website: www.earthenable.org

In the Press: http://bbc.com/specialfeatures/horizonsbusi-ness/seriessix/smart-and-safe-materials/?vid=p03x5x3v

EarthenableProviding healthy and affordable floors to the Rwandans who can only afford to have a dirt floor in their home.

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What technologies will shine in East Africa in 5 years?

(Biased, of course): I am particularly interested in rural innovations that will tremendously improve standards of living for the majority of the East African population. Technology that improves farmer productivity and market access will have a tremendous impact, as will innovations that improve how people live (building/ cooking/ lighting/ communication solutions, etc.)

Which other startups are innovating East Africa right now?

Inyenyeri, Off Grid Electric, BBOXX, One Acre Fund, Sanku, Ignitia (now West Africa, but soon East!)

Earthenable (continued)

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mindsky


The regional economy is powered by small-to-medium enterprises. But these small companies struggle with a small or non-existent HR department that typically runs a tiny recruitment budget. They can’t afford to work with a recruiter, so they take out ads in newspapers and local job boards and end up inundated with unqualified, poorly-written CVs.

The best candidates flock to bigger, more recognizable brands, while the SMEs compete to get their name out in front of the right people. The candidates they interview tend not to be the best in the market. Difficulty attracting and retaining good talent can often mean failure for growing teams.

We developed MindSky to combine the high volume and affordability of job boards with the targeted matching and quality control of a bespoke recruiter. Just like a job board, any company can post jobs and anyone can apply. But unlike traditional job boards, not all applications make it to the hiring manager’s desk. Our algorithms ensure there’s a basic match between candidate and job post, and our Talent Advocates evaluate soft skills and potential to succeed in the workforce. Users who need a bit more help can work with their Talent Advocate to improve their interview skills and be more strategic in their job search.

The result, and our goal, is to make life easier for busy, overwhelmed hiring managers.


My co-founder Elizabeth Dearborn Hughes and I started sketching out a technology solution for talent sourcing in late 2014, when we were both at the Akilah Institute (http://www.akilahinstitute.org), where she is the Co-Founder and CEO and I was the Communications Director.

Name: Anastasia Uglova

Role: Co-Founder & MD


Website: www.mindsky.com

Connecting job seekers to top employers in East Africa

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Staffing was one of our biggest challenges at Akilah as we always struggled to find great hires, despite the hundreds of applications we received for every position. Recruitment agencies were expensive and didn’t always understand our company mission or hiring needs.

Job boards and newspaper ads promised certain death by drowning in unqualified CVs. When we spoke with other hiring managers, we realized our challenges were not unique. The temptation to fix the broken job market proved too powerful to ignore!

We found a market need for an in-between solution: not simply a job board, definitely not an unscalable, high-touch recruitment firm, but a matching platform that provides hiring managers with pre-screened candidates. Because MindSky was inspired by our experience helping Akilah graduates find jobs, we have a brutal unfair advantage: we understand both the job seeker and the hiring manager, and we know how to bring the two sides together effective-ly. It’s not very helpful to compare us just to job boards or just to recruitment agencies. We’re really a hybrid product providing something unique to our clients.


My background is in digital news media and technology. Prior to launching MindSky in 2015, I served as the Commu-nications Director at MindSky’s sister company, the Akilah Institute.

I came to Rwanda in 2012 as a Global Health Corps Fellow with Health Builders. Prior to that, I worked at NBC Universal for six years, moving from NBC Washington as political producer into strategic planning, business devel-opment, advertising operations, and digital product management, helping incubate an internal local media startup from an initial 10-person team to a local news division of over 60 staff serving 10 owned-and-operated stations and 30 affiliates across the U.S. I’ve also worked at the Cato Institute, the Weekly Standard, and the press office of Sena-tor Hillary Rodham Clinton.


I love that it’s very young -- not just the startup scene but the private sector in general. Almost any idea you have as an entrepreneur, it’s likely worth exploring its viability because it’s a necessary innovation.


Akilah Institute launched in Kigali in 2010, so the founding team already had deep relationships with employers that had been hiring Akilah graduates and with the private sector that had been giving Akilah feedback into its curricu-lum. So it made sense to launch in an environment where we already had great connections. But it’s also so easy to get started here! It’s tough to beat Kigali for ease of doing business.


I really like what Safe Boda is doing in Uganda and what Safe Motos is doing in Rwanda. It’s not just an Uber substi-tute. Taking motorcycles to get around comes with its own inherent dangers: drivers are often poorly trained, drive too fast, and take completely unnecessary risks. Aside from making it easy to get picked up and dropped off where you need to be, these companies are de-risking a necessary and prevalent mode of transportation for many who live here.

mindsky (continued)

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safemotos


Motorcycle taxis are often lacking in professionalism and safety.


A large number of Primus (beer) between the co-founders.


Peter: Making a bus ticketing system in Kigali.

Nash: Brand strategist at Carnegie Mellon University Rwanda.


ICT entrepreneur visa, the minister of ICT is on WhatsApp, you can register a business in ten minutes, there is practi-cally no corruption, everyone is supportive.


Those are markets, not launch pads. Kigali is where you go from 0-1. Those are the markets where you scale into.

Name: Barrett Nash

Role: Co-Founder


Website: www.safemotos.com

In the Press: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21697278-poten-tial-and-pitfalls-african-tech-inno-vation-africa-uber-alles

Using smartphones to make taking moto-taxis easy and safe

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quickride


A majority of businesses and organizations in Rwanda lose a significant amount of money each year due to misap-propriation of fleet resources (especially fuel money and maintenance costs) and in poor utilization of their vehicles.

At QuickRide we create custom dispatch and fleet management systems to empower managers to make informed decisions about their fleets, by providing them with real-time tracking of their vehicles, task scheduling and business intelligence.


Inspiration behind starting QuickRide is based on the need to have a “Made in Rwanda” solution to the above men-tioned problem. There were a number of fleet management software already present in Rwanda but non met the full requirements of the Rwandan environment. Since our software is developed and tested in Rwanda, it gave us the opportunity to really capture the problem and created a tailored solution.


Before QuickRide, I was a co-founder and full stack developer for AwesomityLabs where we developed a number of successful products like academia.rw and umbrella digital platform (soon to launch).


The diversity and constant support from the Rwandan government.

Name: Lionel Mpfizi

Role: CEO


Website: www.quickride.io

In the Press: https://www.seed-starsworld.com/blog/2017/01/18-african-startups-radar/

Breacheing the gap be-tween drivers and pas-sengers through locally made logistics tools

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Well, Kigali is home, so it felt right to pilot my startup here. Also, Kigali is set to become Africa’s ICT hub in the com-ing few years, which I think will create more investment opportunities and a better penetration for our products.


Mobile payments technologies


AwesomityLab

quickride (continued)

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ampersand


We’re making a better, cheaper, data-connected PayGo motorcycles for the millions of motorcycle taxis in East Af-rica. They just happen to be electric.


We saw the costs of electric vehicle technology and batteries coming down, the emergence of mobile pay-go tech-nology in East Africa, and the use of pay-go in offgrid solar. We realised that there was no reason electric vehicles should start out as something for rich folks, and that the magical ‘tipping point’ would happen wherever someone offered an electric vehicle that was just cheaper and better than the petrol one, and that would probably be where you have a lot of drivers covering big distances each day and paying a lot for petrol. There are about three million motorbike taxi drivers in East Africa, covering over 100km a day.


Olaf has run a company building electric cargo tricycles for twenty years, and supplies UPS for their inner city deliveries in Europe. Emmanuel did a masters in Engineering in Germany and worked for electrical utilities and a solar company before returning home to Rwanda. Josh was an intellectual property lawyer in China and the UK, and spent five years dealing with Chinese factories for foreign multinationals.


Rwanda is on the verge of becoming the test-kitchen of Africa. As a small, well-run country with low corruption a business-friendly government, and strong policies around green growth and tech, it’s a great place to move quickly and develop new ideas, and most cabinet ministers are just a phone call away. Kigali’s also a safe, pleasant city.

Name: Josh Whale

Role: CEO


Website: www.ampersand.solar

In the Press: honestly, we’re trying to fly under the radar for now...

Bringing the electric bike revolution from China to Africa

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Initially: low corruption, smaller and better organised bureaucracy, ease of registering a company and moving here as a foreign entrepreneur (no $2000 visas), or two year waits for paperwork like in Tanzania.

That is death for a startup, and since we make vehicles our products are subject to regulation and laws might need to be updated. The Rwandan Government amended its aviation legislation to enable companies like Zipline to oper-ate. Then for our business it was also that motorcycles and petrol cost significantly more in Rwanda than in Nairobi or Dar.


Electric vehicles! The EAC already leapfrogged fixed line telephones with mobile phones, then banking with mobile money, then electrical utilities with mobile money - PAYG solar.

Petrol is next.


I think BBOXX have the right formula for solar home systems, and are one of a handful of solar companies bundling their service contracts together to raise capital.

There are interesting things happening in cold-chain: Inspirafarms have an innovative offgrid cold storage system that stores ‘cold’ like a battery. They’re also working with Get It Rwanda, an e-commerce, food and FMCG distribu-tion company with their own big offgrid cold storage and distribution facility.

SafeBoda and SafeMotos are so much more than just Uber’s for motorbike taxis.

Taroworks are using technology to streamline and improve customer interaction for businesses like solar home systems that work with relatively remote, low-revenue users.

Minigrid companies like Meshpower and Absolute are innovating around productive use assets (like grain mills or refrigeration) into their grids.

Inyenyeri have an innovative and ambitious business model for cook stoves that allows rural users to pay for fuel and cook stoves with waste biomass instead of cash. This seems to get around a key challenge that all the PAYG companies grapple with in Rwanda - that cash flow is irregular, and poor rural users either can’t commit, or often default.

And since it’s Friday, check out Sokkaa.com so you can keep up with the football banter this weekend.

ampersand (continued)

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Sokkaa


Sokkaa is a pan-African sports community and media company for the social age, combining the best localised content and cross-platform native advertising solutions. Sokkaa was launched out of a desire to offer Africa-first, multilingual media content, and to provide a solution to the broken advertising model seen across the continent.

Our mission is to provide global brands with both the data and the platform needed to enter these fast growing emerging markets. We will have a community of 100M young sports fans by 2020.


In 2013 I was consulting for an organisation in Rwanda, and I was amazed by the passion I saw for European football – every conversation was started with ‘which team do you support’ followed by a good 10 minute rant about their team (usually Man Utd, Arsenal or Chelsea), and how they were going to win the league that year.

After finishing the contract I went to Nairobi and while in a taxi, I saw what looked like a fight breaking out in the street. I was assured by the taxi driver that this wasn’t the case, and that it was just a group of friends discussing the day’s football news.

I got back to London, closed up the food company I owned, packed my bags and told my mum I was moving to Rwanda...within a month I was back in the land of a thousand hills. This passion and conversation around sport was fascinating and my goal was to see how I could help move it online so that fans from across the continent could interact and have their say. This is where the Sokkaa community was born.

Name: Thom Harvey

Role: Founder


Website: www.sokkaa.com

Tackling digital me-dia’s broken advertising model through the con-tinent’s favourite sport

29


I had a few companies including a super-food import company and also Sow Gourmet – a microgreen growing prod-uct for city dwelling foodies. Before that I was an Architect.


It’s safe, has pretty good Internet, and access to Kenya / Nigeria / Tanzania / Uganda is super easy.


We can get English, French and Swahili content writers all within Rwanda, meaning that we can access nearly all African football fans from one office.


I’m excited to see what happens with fintech after seeing the dominance of MPesa in Kenya. I also have a love for drones so lets see if they can ‘take off’ in East Africa too…


I met Matt Flannery from Branch.co on a recent trip to San Francisco – I like what they are doing. Also, technically not a startup, but Facebook are doing some awesome stuff in this part of the World, including their Free Basics platform.

sokkaa (continued)

30

mergims


Because it is complex and expensive for African merchants to go online, their activities are constrained to their neighbourhoods only, thus limiting their possibilities to prosper. So mergims.com allows them to SIMPLY have a presence online at no cost; thus receiving payments from around the world.

Contrary to payment gateways and payment aggregators, mergims comes in with a full package that allows any merchant to easily start selling products or services online and instantly receiving disbursement of money in local bank account and native currency.

Think of Facebook with payment options! Awesome right?


I use to live in Canada and I could not understand why I could go online and buy literally anything from as far as China but nothing from Africa.


I had a marketing & PR company and my last job was at Montreal Police in Canada, at their information analysis unit, and yes I did very well.


Government support and a lot of opportunities available as it is building itself.

Name: Muhire Louis Antoine

Role: Founder and CEO


Website: www.mergims.com

In the Press: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/Print-er/2017-03-17/209011/

Cheap yet convenient and secure mobile pay-ment platform forAfrica.

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Security, total absence of corruption and fast (4G) internet.


Drones in delivery, solar energy, ecommerce and agritech.


ARED, Academic Bridge Rwanda, Branch.co.

mergims (continued)

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PAPERBANK


With predominantly offline systems in place, there are no effective ways for schools to share learning materials with their students. We are building a mobile platform to fix this.


When we were students in high school we faced this access to information problem ourselves. When we were preparing for national examinations it was hard for us to find revision materials and those that were available were expensive.


I was an intern at a company called Great Lakes Energy. I was trained by an ex-Microsoft employee so I can say it was successful, being measured to world class standards.


I love the fact that the government here is very supportive of startups – in my eyes Rwanda is the best place to launch a startup.


Kigali is my home. But more importantly there is no corruption, so our energy is focused on building a project and not dealing with other influences as in the other cities.

Name: Patrick Uwonkunda

Role: CTO


Website: www.paperbank.net

Educational mobile platform for students to share revision notes.

33


As many people get connected to the internet, proper financial apps will be needed, those that can help integrate the world of mobile money to the internet will be crucial.

Educational apps will be needed as an alternative to traditional schools, because education quality in east Africa is not as advanced as in other parts of the world. These apps will be needed to fill the gaps because the only way to develop countries is to start by developing their education systems.


Safemotos is doing a great job here in Rwanda - it is helping to show people the importance of using mobile apps to simplify processes, and is safely training moto-taxi drivers who didn’t know any of this was possible a few years ago.

Andela is also doing a great job to train developers in Kenya.

PAPERBANK (continued)

Inyenyeri eliminating household air pollution in Rwanda www.inyenyeri.org

Off Grid Electric Africa solar startup in Rwanda and Tanzania www.offgrid-electric.com

BBOXX affordable, clean energy to off-grid Africa www.bboxx.co.uk

One Acre Fund financing for smallholder farmers in East Africa www.oneacrefund.org

Sanku small-scale fortification www.sanku.com

Safe Boda similar to SafeMoto but in Uganda www.safeboda.com

AwesomityLab developers in Kigali www.awesomity.rw

Inspirafarms solar powered off-grid cold storage www.inspirafarms.com

Get It Rwanda e-commerce for consumables in Rwanda www.getitrwanda.com

Taroworks CRM to manage field operations for NGOs www.taroworks.org

Meshpower solar powered nanogrids / smart metering www.meshpower.co.uk

ARED “business in a box” solar kiosk platform www.a-r-e-d.com

Academic Bridge Rwanda digitalising Rwandan education www.academicbridge.rw

Branch ‘AMEX of Africa’ www.branch.co

Andela technical leadership program for developers www.andela.com

mentioned projects

34

other notable StartupsHeHe Labs mobile technologies company www.hehelabs.com

Torque SAAS platform for last-mile distribution www.torque.rw

Carisoko Autotrader for Rwanda www.carisoko.com

250 Taxi Uber for Rwanda www.250taxi.com

Yubeyi Amazon Marketplace for Rwanda www.yubeyi.com

GroceWheels fresh produce delivery service www.grocewheels.com

Babyl online health advice www.babyl.rw

Kasha delivering women’s health care products www.kasha.rw

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FINAL THOUGHTSKIGALI IS ‘AFRICA LIGHT’Kigali is an interesting case study in east Africa, as it is the polar opposite of it’s surrounding capital cities such as Nai-robi, Kampala and Dar es Salaam. Often called ‘Africa light’, the city is clean, safe and a great place to test innovation in a relatively controllable environment.

The downside to this, is that sometimes the city can feel closed to it’s surroundings, making regular trips around the region necessary to keep up with the latest trends and to see how users are interacting with digital products.

This is not too much of a problem, and the city’s proximity to the rest of east Africa, plus the ability to easily travel in the region has made it home to many international entrepreneurs - Kigali airport is growing as one of Africa’s largest transfer hubs with direct flights to Nigeria, South Africa, UAE, Europe and soon UK.

Another attraction to the entrepreneurs that we spoke with was the ease of doing business, and the lack of corrup-tion in Rwanda. To register a company in Kenya can take days of sitting in one of their business centres, with little guidance and a feeling that the whole process would run a lot smoother if you slipped $20 in the papers - this is not the case in Rwanda. Other than the visa process sometimes being a little strung out, registering and running com-pany operations within the country is quick and often automated.

Areas to Explore With the large uptake in mobile use and data consumption, there are opportunities for startups to use mobile tech-nology to innovate existing sectors, particularly services and manufacturing. Rwanda aims to become Africa’s first truly digital economy and with Ericsson creating the backbone of this with their M-Commerce Interconnect Solution, there will be lots of scope to plug in mobile financial services.

The energy sector, particularly renewables, also remains highly attractive to investors, and startups are beginning to explore this space - with currently only 20% of the population having access to electricity, there is a lot to be ad-dressed.

THE city’s FUTURE looks BRIGHT It is very clear that the Government really believes Rwanda can be a leading knowledge based economy in Africa in the near future. While it is a tall order to hit these goals by 2020, the foundations have been set in place and the for-ward thinking mentality that saw to digitalise the country at such an early stage might have put it ahead of the pack.

The availability of high quality internet, the startup supporting network and the city’s adoption of Transform Africa, have all shown Rwanda’s intent going forward. Add to this, the plans for Innovation City, and the organisations that have committed to having it as their base in the EAC, and the next 10 years looks a very exciting time.

kigali

STARTUP REPORT 2017

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