VOX
By Stefano Virgilli
VOXMay 25, 2020
VOX#17: SolShare, Daniel Ciganovic, CEO, CFO & Co-Founder (May 21, 2020)
Interview with Daniel Ciganovic on his startup, Solshare where energy meets finance, creating a world with more evenly distributed energy through their solar trading platform
FACTSHEET
Name of the startup: Solshare
Website: https://www.me-solshare.com/
Started in 2013
Headquarters: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Industry: Clean Energy
Team size: 63
Current Revenues: Not Disclosed
Name of the speakers: Daniel Ciganovic
Role of the speakers: CEO & Co-Founder, CFO & Co-Founder
Other founders: Sebastian Groh, Hannes Kirchhoff
Funding raised to date: USD 1.7M
Currently fundraising: Yes
Targeted amount: USD 2.75M
VOX#16: M-Life, Shez Tejani, CEO & Founder (May 12, 2020)
Interview with Shez Tejani on his company, M-Life, creating a world where marketing solves consumer problems specifically and directly
FACTSHEET
Name of the startup: M-Life
Website: www.facebook.com/mlifekenya
Year of incorporation: 2018
Headquarters: Kenya
Industry: Consumer Data Driven Marketing
Team size: 15
Current Revenues: $250,000 in 2019, $500,000 projected in 2020
Name of the speaker: Shez Tejani
Role of the speaker: CEO & Founder
Funding raised to date: US$ 250,000
Currently fundraising: Yes
Targeted amount: US$ 1,000,000
VOX#15: Moringa School, Audrey Cheng, CEO & Founder (May 12, 2020)
Interview with Audrey Cheng on her company, Moringa School, one of the few established coding schools in Africa, and how she is tackling covid by changing its long term business strategy
FACTSHEET
Name of the startup: Moringa School
Website: https://moringaschool.com/
Year of incorporation: 2014
Headquarters: Kenya
Industry: Education
Team size: 105
Current Revenues: Undisclosed
Name of the speaker: Audrey Cheng
Role of the speaker: CEO and Founder
Funding raised to date: Undisclosed
Currently fundraising: Undisclosed
Targeted amount: Undisclosed
VOX#14: Suade, Diana Paredes, CEO & Co-Founder (May 6, 2020)
Interview with Diana Paredes as she shares valuable startup life sessions and tells us about her startup, Suade, a bootstrapped reg-tech and RaaS (Regulation as a Service) in the fintech space with headquarters in the UK.
FACTS SHEET
Name of the startup: Suade
Website: https://suade.org/
Year of incorporation: 2014
Headquarters: London
Industry: Fintech
Team size: 40
Current Revenues: Not disclosed
Name of the speaker: Diana Paredes
Role of the speaker: CEO & Co-Founder
Who are the founders: Diana Paredes & Murat Abur
Funding raised to date: Not disclosed
Currently fundraising: No
Targeted amount: n.a.
VOX#13: Asilimia, Tekwane Mwendwa, CEO (April 30, 2020)
In the 13th episode of VOX Podcast, Diane and Stefano interview Tekwane, connected from Paris where he's strategizing the expansion of Asilimia (which means Percentage in Swahili language). Asilimia started as facilitator of free M-Pesa transactions (mobile money) and it is evolving in a larger ecosystem of services.
Name of the startup: Asilimia
Website: https://asilimia.co.ke/
Year of incorporation: 2018
Headquarters: Nairobi
Industry: Fintech
Team size: 8
Current Revenues: US$ 10k/month
Name of the speaker: Tekwane Mwendwa
Role of the speaker: CEO & Founder
Funding raised to date: USD $400K
Currently fundraising: No Targeted amount: n.a.
VOX#12: InsectiPro, Talash Huijbers, CEO (April 30, 2020)
When we think of technology we tend to imagine technology as a person sitting behind a computer and writing lines of code. Most likely we would not imagine a young woman getting her hands dirty with bugs, but this is what agri-tech can be about. Meet Talash Huijbers, the Founder and CEO of Insecti Pro, one of the world's most innovative agri-tech startups, based in Kenya.
Name of the startup: InsectiPro
Website: https://insectipro.com/
Year of incorporation: 2018
Headquarters: Limuru, Kenya
Industry: Agriculture
Team size: 55
Current Revenues: Not disclosed
Name of the speaker: Talash Huijbers
Role of the speaker: Founder/CEO
Funding raised to date: US$ 500k
Currently fundraising: Not disclosing
Targeted amount: Not disclosing
VOX#11: UTU, Jason Eisen, CEO (April 29, 2020)
Interviewing Jason Eisen which proposes a drastically new approach to the online trust system, starting from Nairobi, Kenya and aiming to global expansion.
Name of the startup: UTU
Website: https://utu.io/
Year of incorporation: 2017
Headquarters: Nairobi
Industry: Trust Infrastructure as a Service
Team size: 35 Current
Revenues: Not disclosed
Name of the speaker: Jason Eisen
Role of the speaker: CEO and Founder
Who are the founders: Jason Eisen, Dr. Bastian Blankenburg, Ronald Mahondo
Funding raised to date: US$1.7M
Currently fundraising: Yes, Equities
Targeted amount: US$1M
VOX#10: Sokowatch, Daniel Yu, Global CEO (April 25, 2020)
Interview with the brilliant founder of Sokowatch, Daniel Yu. Daniel lived in Kenya where he established a successful startup that has raised 20 million dollars to date.
Name of the startup: Sokowatch
Website: https://sokowatch.com/
Year of incorporation: 2014
Locations: East Africa
Industry: E-Commerce
Team size: 150
Current Revenues: Not Disclosed
Name of the speaker: Daniel Yu
Role of the speaker: Global CEO & Founder
Funding raised to date: $20M
Currently fundraising: No
Targeted amount: n.a.
VOX#9: Afya Rekod, John Kamara, CEO (April 21, 2020)
Multitalented CEO and Founder John Kamara shares the background of his move into health-tech. From Nigeria to Kenya, through Ireland, John has set up a pilot project on medical data ownership.
- Name of the startup: Afya Rekod
- Website: https://afyarekod.com/
- Year of incorporation: 2019
- Locations: Nairobi, Dublin, Lagos
- Industry: Health Tech
- Team size: 6
- Current Revenues: n.a.
- Name of the speaker: John Kamara
- Role of the speaker: CEO
- Funding raised to date: USD 300k
- Currently fundraising: Yes
- Targeted amount: USD 1M
VOX#8: Bwala, Kennedy Nyabwala, CEO (April 21, 2020)
Find out about the evolution of the business model of Bwala Logistics from the founder Kennedy Nyabwala. Bwala started in the automotive sector and moved into FMCG logistics in Kenya and Uganda.
- Name of the startup: Bwala Logistics
- Website: https://www.bwala.co.ke/
- Year of incorporation: 2018
- Locations: Kenya, Uganda
- Industry: Logistics // supply chain // retail
- Team size: 15 Current Revenues: 80K-100K USD Monthly
- Name of the speaker: Kennedy Nyabwala
- Role of the speaker: CEO
- Who are the founders: Kennedy Nyabwala- CEO & Davis Angwenyi - CTO
- Funding raised to date: 250k USD
- Currently fundraising: Yes
- Targeted amount: 2M USD
VOX#7: People Data Company, Greg Lipper, CEO (18 April, 2020)
Interview with Greg Lipper, Founder and CEO of Happi and People Data Company. Connecting form California, Greg shares with Diane and Stefano the inspiring business model and the original investment strategy of his startups.
- Name of the startup: People Data Company
- Website: https://www.peopledatacompany.com/
- Year of incorporation: 2020
- Locations: US, UK, Singapore and everywhere in between
- Industry: Market research Team size: 3 full time, 5 regular contractors, dozens of part-time contractors
- Current Revenues: $1m - $5m
- Name of the speaker: Greg Lipper
- Role of the speaker: Founder and President
- Who are the founders: Rita Dobson is a co-founder of Happi Pte Ltd, our Singapore operations company
- Funding raised to date: About $2 million
- Currently fundraising: Yes
- Targeted amount: $1 - $5 million
VOX#6: Ilara Health, Emilian Popa, CEO (April 17, 2020)
An insight in the healthcare pitfalls of sub-saharan Africa, where entrepreneur Emilian Popa founded Ilara Health to solve one of the most visible problems in the system.
Name of the startup: Ilara Health
Website: https://www.ilarahealth.com/
Year of incorporation: 2019
Locations: Kenya
Industry: Healthcare
Team size: 30
Name of the speaker: Emilian Popa
Role of the speaker: CEO & Founder
Who are the founders: Emilian Popa
Funding raised to date: USD 1M
Currently fundraising: Yes
Targeted amount: USD 500k
VOX#5: Lynk, Adam Grunewald, CEO (April 17, 2020)
In the 5th Episode of VOX Podcast, Diane Ha and Stefano Virgilli interview Adam Grunewald, the founder of the gig-economy ecosystem Lynk, thought to be the Linked-in for the Linked-out in emerging markets, starting from Kenya.
- Name of the startup: Lynk
- Website: https://lynk.co.ke/
- Year of incorporation: 2015
- Locations: Kenya
- Industry: Marketplace Services
- Team size: 50 (full time) + 1200 (gig workers)
- Current Revenues: $5M yearly
- Name of the speaker: Adam Grunewald
- Role of the speaker: CEO / Co- Founder
- Who are the founders: Johannes Degn, Adam Grunewald
- Funding raised to date: USD 4M
- Currently fundraising: Yes
- Targeted amount: USD 5M
VOX#4: DEXTF, Federico Cristina, CEO (April 9, 2020)
Stefano Virgilli and Diane Ha interview Federico Cristina, one of the leading founders of the DEXTF, which is aiming to use blockchain technology to democratize asset management and unlock the power of efficient capital allocation.
- Name of the startup: DEXTF
- Website: https://dextf.com/
- Year of incorporation: 2017
- Locations: Singapore
- Industry: Fintech/Blockchain
- Team size: 4 full time
- Current Revenues: 0
- Name of the speaker: Federico Cristina
- Role of the speaker: Co-Founder
- Who are the founders:
- Funding raised to date: 460k USD
- Currently fundraising: No Targeted amount: n.a.
VOX#3: QuickBus, Humphrey Wrey, CEO (April 8, 2020)
Interview with Humphrey Wrey, the Founder and CEO of QuickBus, a mobility startup that is solving a real problem in East Africa and beyond.
- Name of the startup: QuickBus
- Website: https://www.quickbus.com/
- Year of incorporation: 2018
- Headquarters: Nairobi
- Industry: Mobility Services
- Team size: 11
- Current Revenues: USD 110k / monthly
- Name of the speaker: Humphrey Wrey
- Role of the speaker: CEO, Founders
- Who are the founders: Humphrey Wrey
- Funding raised to date: USD 1.7M
- Currently fundraising: No Targeted amount: n.a.
VOX#2: Forecast, Dennis Kayser, CEO (April 3, 2020)
In the second episode of VOX Podcast, host Stefano Virgilli and co-host Diane Ha interview Dennis Kayser from Copenhagen, Denmark, the founder behind the startup Forecast.app
- Name of the startup: Forecast
- Website: www.forecast.app
- Year of incorporation: Sep 15 2016
- Locations: Copenhagen & London
- Industry: SaaS for Professional Service and Enterprise companies
- Team size: 45
- Current Revenues: Not disclosing
- Name of the speaker: Dennis Kayser
- Role of the speaker: CEO
- Who are the founders: Dennis Kayser, Danny Larsen, Jens Pallesen, Niels Frederiksen
- Funding raised to date: $10M
- Currently fundraising: No
VOX#1: x0paAI, Nina Alag Suri, CEO (April 2, 2020)
In the first episode of VOX Podcast, host Stefano Virgilli and co-host Diane Ha interview Nina Alag Suri, the female entrepreneur behind the HR-tech startup x0paAI.
- Name of the startups: X0PA AI
- Website: www.x0pa.com
- Year of incorporation: 2017
- Headquarters: Singapore
- Industry: HR tech
- Team size: 22
- Current Revenues: $535k end 2019, $250k Jan to date
- Name of the speaker: Nina Alag Suri
- Role of the speaker: Founder and CEO
- Who are the founders: Nina Alag Suri, Jussi keppo
- Funding raised to date: $1000000
- Currently fundraising: Yes
- Targeted amount: $1.5m
