THE 2 STARTUPS PARTICIPATING IN PLUG AND PLAY’S STARTUP CAMP 2017
Among 175 Startups, Nigerian company Flutterwave, and the South African, Hepstar have been chosen to participate in this year’s start up camp hosted by Plug and Play in Silicon Valley, the world’s largest startup accelerator. Plug and Play has been described by its owner, Saeed Amidi as “Silicon Valley in a box”. Every year, Plug and Play reviews around 5000 startups to choose around 160 that they run 12-week, industry-specific, accelerator programs for. So how did these two startups make the cut and what do they offer? Read on to find out more about Hepstar as well as Flutterwave.
Flutterwave is a Nigerian startup whose goal is to fully integrate digital payment into current financial structures across Africa. They recently launched a product called Moneywave that aims to develop a universally used and accepted form of digital payment in the continent of Africa. Flutterwave has developed infrastructure that connects directly to international and local card schemes, mobile money and bank schemes, to make these forms of payment available everywhere. The result would be that new revenue could be grown across markets in Africa with the need for only one integration system. It would also be possible to transfer and receive money between borders of any countries on Africa. Flutterwave is a part of Plug and Play’s Fintech batch. Hopefully the program will help the startup to expand its reach and introduce its services all over the continent.
Hepstar is a 4-year-old South African company headquartered in Cape Town. Since its inception, the company has experienced rapid growth (The company has expanded into Turkey and Mauritius since then.) The fundamental goal of Hepstar is to provide specialized Travel Insurance to travel merchants. Travel insurance is a travel add-on that customer’s purchase, thereby providing travel companies with ancillary revenue. Hepstar is part of Plug and Play’s Travel and Hospitality Batch.
Come the 6th through the 8th of June, this year, Hepstar and Flutterwave will graduate from the program along with the other 173 startups. We look forward to what lies ahead for both of these startups. Let us know what you think about it in the comments below.