TechCabal interviewed two of the three South African Google Black Founders Fund firms.
Google unveiled the third batch of Google Black Founders Fund businesses last week. The $4 million fund provides equity-free grants and mentorship to early-stage, Black-led, high-growth enterprises in Africa and Europe to address systematic racial inequity in venture capital (VC) investment.
Women created 72% of the 25 African firms chosen this year. Three South African companies—Excel@Uni, HealthDart, and ZinaCare—are among the 25. TechCabal spoke Excel@Uni and HealthDart about being chosen for the initiative, the pain areas their firms are tackling, how they aim to exploit the curriculum, and more.
Excel@Uni
Due to high tuition prices, restricted scholarships and grants, and the necessity to work part-time or full-time to support themselves or their families, just 26% of South African university students graduate on time. 2.1% of jobless adults are university graduates, while 7.5% have other tertiary credentials; according to Stats SA., 90% lack a university education.
Tertiary institutions and student funders—bursaries/scholarships—acknowledge the need to improve student achievement and professional preparedness. They lack the tools, internal resources, and collaboration to grow student success pillars.
Excel@Uni, a South African ed-tech platform, helps students graduate on time, become work-ready, and make money from their education. This is why Excel@Uni CEO Lungelo Gumede told TechCabal, “The current quo has so failed to generate graduates at the speed and quality necessary.” When unimpressive or stable persistence, retention, and completion statistics are analysed, it becomes evident that the money spent by students today is not realising their full potential.”
Gumede said Google’sGoogle’s recognition validates the startup’sstartup’s objective. He added Google’sGoogle’s Black Founders Fund would enhance the startup’sstartup’s market research. “Being recognised by an organisation like Google is a tremendous validation for our mission,” he told TechCabal. It will help us approach more scholarship donors to finance tertiary students. He continued, “We will use technology to streamline scholarship financing procedures to save bureaucracy and guarantee donors get the return on investment in greater completion figures and work-ready students.”
Excel@Uni develops software for South African student funders to manage data and enhance student success initiatives. Excel@Uni builds software and offers digital peer-to-peer wrap-around assistance to help customers—bursaries/scholarships—achieve professional preparedness for students. Our wrap-around assistance includes technologically enabled peer-to-peer private tutoring, mentorship, job preparedness tools, and bursary/scholarship administration. “We want to elevate scholarships and student achievement,” Gumede told TechCabal.
Excel@Uni wants to utilise Google Cloud’sCloud’s services to enhance its app’sapp’s user experience.
HealthDart
This survey states that 50% of South Africans visit a pharmacy monthly, and 30% are on chronic medicine. Medication and health consultations could be more pricey and efficient. HealthDart uses technology to save people up to 70% on medicine and primary care while treating their conditions.
HealthDart CEO Njabulo Skhosana has struggled to solve the issue. He told TechCabal that the biggest problem was finding the best way to streamline medicines and healthcare consultations. We needed help optimising our technological stack to decrease data prices for low-income users. Notwithstanding these hurdles, we have committed to continual development, aggressively soliciting customer input and changing our solutions to match their needs.”
HealthDart has cloud access via Google’sGoogle’s Founders Fund. HealthDart’s objective is to use technology to provide access to excellent healthcare, according to Skhosana. “We use digital pharmacy, telemedicine, and health insurance connections to increase access to excellent healthcare and medication,” he stated.
