By Nigerian e-health company WellaHealth and Ghanaian agri-tech startup Cowtribe have been selected to take part in the Techstars Impact accelerator in Austin, United States (US), gaining access to mentorship and $120,000 in funding.
The 10 startups that make up the Techstars Impact 2019 class will work with Techstars mentors to pressure-test their business models, while designing for market-driven impact at scale. The programme also invests US$120,000 into each startup, which were selected based on their potential to solve pressing social and environmental problems.
Cowtribe and WellaHealth have been selected to take part, alongside companies from US, Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
Launched in 2016, Cowtribe enables animal vaccines to be ordered via USSD, text and telephone, as well as through a network of community agents. The startup sources and aggregates genuine and affordable vaccinations from large suppliers, working through a network of qualified agents to deliver them to farmers, and last year raised US$300,000 in funding to expand into more regions of Ghana.
WellaHealth, formed in 2015, provides a pharmacy automation system delivered via mobile, which deals with back-end management such a stock taking, electronic patient records, drug labelling and information, as well as allowing pharmacists to follow up with patients by SMS. The company launched a new rapid malaria testing service in April of last year.
“At Techstars Impact we have a core belief that our deepest problem sets represent our greatest opportunities, and over the years we have watched this story play out in our portfolio.
In an analysis of our wider portfolio looking at the multiple on invested capital for our historical investments in impact companies compared with our general portfolio, we found that impact is outperforming,” said Zoe Schlag, managing director of Techstars.
The 44 companies in the Techstars Impact portfolio have impacted 3.7 million people globally
