88mph

88mph is no longer investing. It is a venture capital firm specializing in seed, startup, and early stage investments. The firm also runs an accelerator program. The firm seeks to invest in the mobile-web sector. It typically invests in English-speaking African countries with a focus on Nigeria and South Africa. The firm prefers to invest up to $0.1 million per startup. It may also provide follow on financing in some cases. The firm also provides incubator services. 88mph was founded in 2011 and is based in Nairobi, Kenya with an additional office in Cape Town, South Africa.

Joshua Karjala-Svendsen

Entrepreneur in Residence

Past deals in Nigeria

ApexPeak Pte. Ltd.

Seed Round in 2013
ApexPeak is a new capital provider to small and medium size enterprises directly and those transacting on electronic invoicing networks. Their simple and innovative solution helps ease the cash flow problems faced by most SME owners today by offering them early payments on their invoices. By offering a fast, flexible and affordable service, ApexPeak removes the lengthy, manual and restrictive processes required by banks. As a result, their customers no longer need to worry about cash flow problems and can instead focus on growing their businesses.

Near A Builder South Africa

Non Equity Assistance in 2013
Near A Builder South Africa, is an online tool allowing home owners to post their home improvements, fix ups, repairs, renovations, etc on line and allow it to go to tender. NO FEES PAYABLE! This service is free for the general public and they are able to post all their requirements on our platform.

Mdundo

Non Equity Assistance in 2012
Mdundo is a music service providing Africa with easy and affordable access of music. According to PwC, 38% of the 300m smartphone users in Africa in 2017, listens to music on their phone every month. We collect rights to an increasingly popular unique Africa music catalogue. The customer can download and stream the music legally from our mobile website and android app free of charge and we tab in to Africa’s growing digital advertisement industry.

Gamsole

Seed Round in 2012
Gamsole is an African based mobile game production company. Our goal is to make games that are fun to play; plain and simple. Each game offers a widely imaginative and irresistibly fun gameplay experience that appeals to gamers of all age groups.

Graphflow

Seed Round in 2014
Graphflow owns and operates a recommendation engine that matches customers with products by analyzing historical and real-time data. It provides product, user, and content recommendations for businesses. It uncovers patterns in customer behavior, such as purchases, views, and likes; and matches users with any kind of 'item' ranging from ecommerce products, entertainment, and energy to healthcare and education. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Peach Payments

Seed Round in 2013
Peach Payments provides payment solutions to online and mobile businesses enabling them to easily accept payments from consumers across the globe and especially from those in the emerging markets. Our specific focus is on Africa and the BRIC countries where the local infrastructure requires a unique and tailored approach to online payments.

Ekaya.com

Angel Round in 2014
Founded by Justin R. Melville, Ruark Ferreira, Rudolf Vavruch & Mark Heerden, we make clever little things in the real estate and rental space. We make mobile-oriented, beautiful and powerful tools. Ekaya is a part of the 88mph Accelerator Cape Town Summer 2014 Program. We're currently in "stealth mode"

Byte Money

Seed Round in 2014
Byte Money engages in the receipting and allocation of funeral policies using a mobile point of sale (POS) terminal and a pay your premium platform. The company electronically collects cash premiums and performs cash ups; and provides service and support. It also services/repairs and replaces POS terminals in South Africa. The company serves funeral parlors, administrators/underwriters, software providers, and policy holders. Byte Money was founded in 2008 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

BookNow

Seed Round in 2014
Booknow Limited operates as an online travel agency that focuses on selling bus tickets. It enables travelers to search for and get various travel options for planning; and book bus travel tickets through the Internet, mobile phone, or SMS to travel across East African cities. The company is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.

Wabona

Non Equity Assistance in 2013
Wabona (Sotho for You See & pronounced Waa-Bo-Nah) is an online subscription video streaming service. Wabona delivers African and international video content to markets in the African Diaspora (Diaspora referring to Africans living outside of their home countries in Africa) and Pan-Africa. Wabona is currently a division of Afrikan Dust Media Group (ADMG), which is a privately held Media Company incorporated in South Africa.

Pet Heaven

Venture Round in 2014
Pet Heaven is an online pet food store for dog food, cat food, and other pet accessories. It offers medication and breeding products for dogs and cats. The company delivers orders to homes and businesses. Pet Heaven was incorporated in 2010 and is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Adrenaline Hunter

Non Equity Assistance in 2013
Adrenaline Hunter offers an online marketplace that makes it super simple for users to search, compare and book adrenaline sports and unique adventure travel experiences around the world.

Ahoy

Seed Round in 2017
When standard travel tools don't work, or are too slow, its usually when you need them the most. We are on a mission to empower assistants and travellers to effortlessly and enjoyably book & manage crazy amounts of travel on the fly. Especially appreciated by the last minuters, the opportunists, the jugglers, the hustlers, the wheeler dealers, the fixers, traders, and makers. The ones that get things done.

8bit

Seed Round in 2014
8Bit is localised content discovery and analytics platform dedicated to the distribution of high-quality content across their network of indie publishers.

Closet49 Ltd

Pre Seed Round in 2012
Closet49 Ltd. operates as an online fashion marketplace in Kenya. It offers dresses, tops, bottoms, outerwear, shoes, accessories, jewelry, and beauty care products for women; and tops, bottoms, outerwear, shoes, suits, accessories, and jewelry for men. The company enables fashion designers and boutiques to sell their products through its online marketplace. Closet49 Ltd. was founded in 2009 and is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

DavtonLearn

Pre Seed Round in 2015
DavtonLearn offers online education via video learning. Davtonlearn is a Microsoft Authorized Education Partner. DavtonLearn started as Davton8020 consulting in 2009 and has since evolved to become a leading provider of professional certification courses, LMS, Bespoke content development and Education solutions.

Catch

Seed Round in 2014
Go Out. Meet People. Catch shows you who else is going to an event. You select who you would like to meet and we connect you if the interest is mutual.

Diarize Me

Non Equity Assistance in 2014
Diarize.me takes the hassle out of making an appointment. Any business can use diarize.me to better manage their appointments, their clients and their inventory. People are able to find businesses and book appointments instantly from any device via diarize.me

Manyatta rent

Seed Round in 2012
Manyatta Rent is a modern property management for landlords, property managers, and renters By automating third the manual processes like Tenancy Agreement issuance, Receipt issuance , Posting vacant properties .e.t.c

MyDoorHandle

Non Equity Assistance in 2013
MyDoorHandle offers mapping solution through address sharing with longitude and latitude. It engages in creating and sharing global positioning system (GPS) based addresses for mobile devices. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa. MyDoorHandle operates as a subsidiary of Ramani Technologies (PTY) Ltd.

QuicklySign

Non Equity Assistance in 2013
Quicklysign is a web application that allows you to send documents for signature online. They use electronic signatures to allow signers to complete the signing process online without the need to print, scan or fax. Founded in January of 2014, by brothers Gareth and Wayne More and Developer Rob Curtis. Quicklysign was the natural progression of a project all three founders were working on in 2013. When they took a harder look at the problem of getting documents and contracts signed they knew they had to build a simple secure electronic signature application.

Tusqee Systems Ltd.

Seed Round in 2011
Tusqee Systems Ltd. provides SMS based services to schools, churches, NGOs, SACCOs, SMEs, corporates, and other organizations in Kenya and internationally. It offers Sematime, an online bulk SMS service that lets organizations to send branded text messages and bills via SMS. Its Sematime also enables schools to communicate with parents, teachers, and other stakeholders; and send report cards and fee balance notifications to parents via text messages. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

easy2map

Seed Round in 2013
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, easy2map is an online technology company obsessively passionate about providing simple, code-free solutions for creating and sharing online maps for web and mobile platforms. easy2map was founded after the realization that most mapping APIs, whilst being incredibly feature-rich and powerful, tend to be fairly daunting for any individual who does not have development or technical knowledge. With this in mind, they saw an opportunity to provide a simple online interface that allows any user, regardless of development experience, to create and manage feature-rich, fully customizable, multi-point maps, which are focused on the ease-of-use for the end-user. Put simply - anyone can now create and embed comprehensive and detailed Google maps on their own webpages. easy2map believes that such a map making tool will allow individuals and businesses to enhance their online presence with maps that captivate the look and feel of their brand with incredibly useful functionality to ultimately make it easier for their customers to interact with them.

Hivisasa

Pre Seed Round in 2011
At Hivisasa, we believe that societies function best when information flows freely among people. This is why we've created Africa’s first crowdsourced news site. Our innovative platform allows you not just to discover untold stories but also to write your own. Born five years ago, Hivisasa now reaches over two million Kenyan readers a month, whose engagement helps support 1,500+ pioneering local writers. And we are just getting started. As a Kenyan company, community is at the heart of everything we do. We are committed to fostering understanding, championing accountability and supporting collective action through local news. All Hivisasa editors are local and proud to collaborate with writers from all walks of life to bring you the news you need to stay ahead.

Wabona

Seed Round in 2013
Wabona (Sotho for You See & pronounced Waa-Bo-Nah) is an online subscription video streaming service. Wabona delivers African and international video content to markets in the African Diaspora (Diaspora referring to Africans living outside of their home countries in Africa) and Pan-Africa. Wabona is currently a division of Afrikan Dust Media Group (ADMG), which is a privately held Media Company incorporated in South Africa.

futaa.com

Seed Round in 2011
Futaa.com owns and operates an online football news portal for Kenya and Nigeria. It provides information on matches, local news, leagues and cups, Kenyan players, football teams, and news affecting Africa. The company is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ghafla!

Seed Round in 2011
Ghafla an African entertainment website with news from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.

Touristlink

Seed Round in 2013
Touristlink.com is the social platform for travel. Travel is all about new experiences. No matter where you're going, Touristlink gives you opportunity to get a real feel of the culture. Meet up with a local for a coffee or beer, find travel companions to share the journey, or if you want arrange a tour with an independent guide.

Pesatalk

Seed Round in 2012
Pesatalk is a financial website whose goal is to help its readers understand what’s happening in the world of local finance.