NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Tulaa, a Kenyan fintech startup, emerged as one of three winners from Africa in the first round of the MIT Zambezi Prize for Innovation in Financial Inclusion. The prize, run by the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, aims to unearth and celebrate startups that are solving Africa’s biggest financial inclusion challenges. More than 500 startups applied from Africa this year. Of the three winners, two companies were founded by women: Tulaa and Wala. Tulaa was awarded $35,000 at this stage and is eligible to compete for the global prize of $1 mln at an event in Boston in November.

“Being awarded this prestigious prize is wonderful recognition of our team’s efforts to use innovative technology to unlock the potential in rural markets in Africa, ” said Hillary Miller-Wise, Founder and CEO of Tulaa. “We are humbled to have been selected from a cohort of exciting and innovative startups on the continent.”

Four out of five African families depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but lack of access to quality inputs, affordable finance and reliable markets keep many of them trapped in a cycle of poverty. To solve these problems, Tulaa leverages mobile technology and artificial intelligence to enable farmers to purchase inputs on credit and to market their crops efficiently at harvest time. By layering its technology onto last mile networks of retailers and traders, Tulaa makes input and output markets work better for farmers.

Photo courtesy of Steven Lilley.