business startup

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Fintech 250 Report: Cape Town-based startups JUMO and Yoco made the list

These two startups from Cape Town are going places.

business startup

Image credit: Pexels/RawPixel

Cape Town has long sought to cement itself as the silicon valley of Africa. While the property prices were always trending in the right direction, the number of break-out startups from the Western Cape has recently started to grow.

CB Insights global Fintech 250: The Top Fintech Startups Of 2018 report lists the best of the best in the Fintech startup space, and two Cape Town-based companies have taken their place on this global list this year.

Yoco, whose mobile card processing machines you may have already used at your local retailer or craft market, is a mobile point of sale startup who are on the list for the second year running. Yoco’s Co-Founder and CEO Katlego Mapha has this to say:

“We are proud to receive recognition on this global fintech list, next to the best in the game. From the onset, we had a global mindset, seeking to build and deliver something world-class to small business in Africa and beyond.”

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JUMO, however, is new to the list of promising startups. It’s a fintech solutions company operating across the African continent, and other emerging markets that provide a platform to facilitate digital financial services like credit and savings by way of USSD short codes giving merchants and customers in emerging markets access financial services they otherwise would struggle to access. JUMO CEO and Founder Andrew Watkins-Ball explains:

“We are working hard to connect people with access to the best possible choices from leading banks, this has required significant investment in building our technology and prediction capabilities. Cape Town has been an important part of our growth by  offering us a deep and highly skilled talent pool especially in software  engineering and data science.”

Close to 4,000 companies were considered for this prestigious list with some factors determining the eventual Top 250. The Wesgro CEO, Tim Harris, said it is indeed promising to see so many African startups joining the FinTech list. The team is especially proud of Yoco and JUMO. He added:

“A recent report found that the Cape Town-Stellenbosch tech ecosystem employs between 40,000 and 50,000 people. This confirms Cape Town as Africa’s tech capital.”

Wesgro is the Cape Town and Western Cape official Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency.

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