Top 10 Tech Companies In Africa

The transformative impact of technology is evident in how we interact, connect with friends, share our stories, and even carry out our professional endeavours. With each passing day, an array of groundbreaking technological products are introduced to the market, making it increasingly challenging to stay abreast of the latest developments. 

Over the years, on the African landscape tech companies have grown tremendously, many start ups has put in more effort into seeing that their companies are up and running. They've grown to the point of breaking some records therefore attracting investors who are interested in the starts ups and who in turn invested and brought into the dream and goal, hereby transforming it to what it is today. 

1 Paystack 

Since stripes acquisition, Paystack technically became a non African owned business, but it still caters to the same African audience, hereby qualifying it as an African company. It endeavours to help businesses in Africa become more profitable,  in order words, offering payment services to merchants across the continent. 

Thus, Paystack has become one of the most popular payment options for vendors using WordPress’s WooCommerce and it relaunched an old feature that offered an e-commerce store for solo entrepreneurs. 

2 Jumia 

If you've been in Africa long enough, and have made some transactions in time past or just recently, then it is most likely you would have used jumia for your online transactions, especially if you reside in the Western part of the continent. 

Jumia’s goal is to establish itself as a popular shopping place for Africans. The continent’s unfamiliar experience with online purchasing was made simpler for them by Jumia’s integration of logistical services within the e-commerce site. You may order, pay, and wait without having to worry about how ypur purchased items will get to you. 

3 Flutterwave 

Is an African fintech company which specializes on the provision of payment infrastructures for the world merchants. The company was created with the aim of providing a digital means which connects Africa and in turn the rest of the world. 

Also its objective is to provide reliable payment solutions for the businesses in the African continent and the world at large. Adding to its record, Flutterwave has successfully processed more than 100 million transactions which are being valued at more than $5 billon. An investment worth over $35 million from strategic investors was secured in 2020 by Flutterwave. 

4 Chipper Cash

Founded by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled in San Francisco, Chipper Cash has operations in most African countries such as: Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, and Rwanda. Since the company is yet to go public, it still retains the unicorn title, being one of the most valuable private tech companies in Africa. 

It focuses on facilitating cross border payments across African countries. The company achieves this mission by building apps and software that simplify payments between individuals and merchants on the African continent. 

5 Opay 

Launched in 2018, OPay is a mobile payment service designed to simplify the process of paying bills, sending and receiving money, and ordering foods and groceries. Since there aren’t lots of companies in this when it kicked off, it quickly grew to become one of the biggest tech companies in Africa. Popular in Nigeria, virtually a reasonable amount of the populace have an Opay account. Now think about the rest of Africa.

6 Kuda Bank 

Kuda Bank prides itself as the first full digital only bank operational in the Nigerian tech market. Currently based in London, it was founded by two Nigerians, Musty Mustapha, and Babs Ogundeyi, and it’s also targets the African market, qualifying it as one of the top tech companies in Africa. While it hasn’t achieved unicorn status yet, it’s worth over $500 million, qualifying it for the rarely-used title: emerging unicorn. 

7 Jobberman 

Ever since Jobberman was founded in 2009, competing platforms have struggled to catch up with the success of the jobs aggregation platform. The company simply runs a job portal that lists job applications across different companies for people looking for jobs.

With Jobberman being the single largest job placement site in sub Saharan Africa, it’s not surprising to see it in a list of the top tech companies in Africa. The website may have been acquired by Ringier One Africa Media, but that doesn’t prevent it from being an African tech company, as it serves solely African countries for now. 

8 Interswitch 

Founded in 2002, it launched as a transaction switching and processing company for Nigerians, before switching to a payment system linking merchants with consumers, as well as a digital payments service. 

Furthermore the company made giant leaps in the Nigerian finance industry by launching two other tech companies namely; Verve and Quickteller. It also inaugurated the Interswitch SPAK National Science Competition for promoting science, technology, mathematics, and engineering in the country, hereby promoting brains and discovering scholars in the Nigerian space. 

9 Releaf 

Releaf is an Agritech company that focuses strictly on using technology to grow food factories in Africa. The aim is to quickly move farmers out of poverty, the company focuses heavily on industrialising Africa’s agricultural industry by harnessing the latest technological standards.

In addition to offering agric based industrialization to African farmers, Releaf also focuses on raw material logistics to food factories from farmers. By sourcing directly from over 1,000 smallholder farmers, Releaf has provided factories with 7.5 million kilograms of crop items, making them one of the most formidable tech companies in Africa. Boasting of creating job opportunities as well as income generation for both farmers and all link ups in between. 

10 Tradedeport 

Links up nicely across small businesses across the African continent. Established in 2016, it has built a gigantic network of more than 40,000 small businesses in Africa which are connected to the entire globe. From its offices in Nigeria, tradedeport has done a good job of bridging the gap between small scale businesses throughout Africa.