This must be the greatest news I have had to share about the Kenyan startup ecosystem this year. Two Kenyan grown entrepreneurs Rodgers Mhandi and Sam Masinde co-founders of Card Planet havebecome the first Kenyan startup to be accepted into Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups.
Card Planet also held a lecture at Stanford University talking about Mobile banking and entrepreneurship in Africa.
Accepted to 500 Startups’ Accelerator, a month ago, (Pause for reaction, a big round of applaud as a Techprenuer this must be the most humbling experience for any founder around the world ,seeing the best of the best finally listening to Africa this goes to show the magnitude of opportunity Africa hold.) Cardplanet Solutions Limited has been there since 2011. In 2012 it was accepted into Nailab’s accelerator then briefly at 88mph and then recently at Mbwana’s Savannah Fund where it got mentorship and funding to launch a number of products. Cardplanet Solutions first product was a school Smart Card for school fees, attendance among others running on its “chip-to-cloud” technology. The startup is also into Health, Identity, Payments and Loyalty.
Card Planet joins Ghana’s Dropifi to be the second African startup to join the 500 strong companies.
Mhandi in a facebook post said “Got a rare opportunity to present to the MBA class at Stanford University, the cradle of the #silliconvalley yesterday.
Accompanying them was Mbwana the founder of Savannah fund, a business accelerator in Nairobi and they both held a co teaching class talking about the Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Africa. Savannah Fund is an investor into Card Planet, a startup earlier founded at the Nailab.
Co teaching class @stanfordbiz with @CardplanetS fresh from Kenya on mobile banking #Africa pic.twitter.com/PQwm2nap6G
— Mbwana (@Mbwana) November 3, 2014
‘The African ecosystem will evolve in a non linear manner and will create new opportunities.’ @Mbwana, VC investor. pic.twitter.com/AAZZ1v7ofu
— Federico Antoni (@federicoantoni) November 4, 2014
Unfortunately you won’t hear or see our local universities doing this. As we continually ignore what is right in front of our eyes the west keep on taking our opportunities and we can’t complain because the world gives us all an equal opportunity not a fair opportunity. Rock On Card planet , Kenya is proud.
