Adaptation and Resilience ClimAccelerator to boost 16 early-stage start-ups across Africa
Kenya, 31 January. EIT Climate-KIC announces the top 16 start-ups selected to participate in the Adaptation and Resilience (A&R) ClimAccelerator in Africa programme, the second African-wide accelerator to scale up climate solutions. The programme will specifically support innovations that address physical climate risks or build the resilience of local communities.
The A&R ClimAccelerator is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland (Irish Aid), and will offer access to funding, expertise, and mentorship by EIT Climate-KIC and its partner organisations KCIC Consulting Limited (KCL) and Concree SAS.
The programme will support innovators addressing the impacts of climate change, such as extreme temperatures and precipitation, drought, cyclones, storms, floods and sea level rise, among others, in order to catalyse systemic change toward a climate-resilient future.
The A&R ClimAccelerator will provide tailored business support to start-ups in Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda.
The selected innovations are:
Africa Green Economy Promotion Center (Benin): works with local residents to collect water hyacinth, a widespread invasive species prevalent in lakes and rivers, in order to compost the hyacinth and produce a sustainable soil fertiliser.
Agrix Tech Sarl (Cameroon): a technology platform based on machine learning and satellite data to help smallholder farmers to support decision-making in the financing, farm inputs, advice, insurance, and market access.
Bio-Recycler (Kenya): uses a decentralised and digitised wastewater management system to ensure access to clean water and sanitation, while building the resilience of households to climate shocks such as drought.
Dikya Group (Democratic Republic of Congo): helps smallholder farmers respond to increased temperatures, instability in the livestock value chain and reliance on international imports through solar-powered cold rooms that drastically reduce post-slaughter losses and increase farmer profitability.
Easytech Farm Solutions Limited (Kenya): provides affordable and nutritious hydroponic fodder with up to one-year shelf life for livestock to address fodder unavailability during droughts.
Eli Green Gold Farm Enterprise (Tanzania): addresses low cassava productivity and marketability in Tanzania by providing smallholder farmers with high quality cassava seeds, training, market linkages and financial services to produce and sell high-quality cassava flour.
Farmer Lifeline Technologies (Kenya): provides a patented device that helps farmers detect crop disease and pests timely, reducing their exposure to farm losses and consequently increasing their income.
Gikabu Millers Ltd (Kenya): is an agro-processing enterprise creating nutritious, affordable flour products from vegetables, in response to increased scarcity of common crops due to drought.
Groupement Delta Civic SA (Senegal): provides waste management services and converts waste into fertilizer through sludge treatment plants, increasing the supply of fertiliser and clean water to local populations.
Irri-Hub (Kenya): leverages technology to provide climate-smart irrigation systems that help smallholder farmers to maximise their productivity as they build resilience against climate change.
Karakunku Farm (The Gambia): is an agro-ecology vegetable production company using automated drip irrigation technologies to water hybrid varieties for affordable and sustainable food production.
KCG Aquatec Fish Farming Consultancy Co. Ltd (Tanzania): focuses on aquaculture, specifically the production of Tilapia fish in cages in Lake Victoria. Their aim is to provide locally produced fish in response to the lack of fresh fish availability, and in place of relying on frozen imports from China.
Mon Artisan Sas (Ivory Coast): provides competent technicians to customers wishing to carry out energy efficiency, they aim to become the pioneer producer of cool roofing paint in the Ivory Coast and in French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa.
Organic Fertilization (Senegal): markets 100% organic fertilizers that lead to shorter crop cycles and better yields, adapting to already limited water resources by reducing the amount needed for irrigation and avoiding further soil degradation.
Tourdalaotra (Madagascar): a social enterprise working in sustainable development and agrotourism, addressing famine and drought through the reforestation of ‘moringa oleifera’ for nutrition, organic fertiliser and pest control.
Upcycle Africa (Uganda): trains unemployed youth and women, teenage mothers, and widows to turn plastic waste into eco-friendly building materials to construct homes that are more capable of withstanding flooding.
Adaptation and Resilience (A&R) ClimAccelerator 2023
The A&R ClimAccelerator was open to all African countries and will be delivered in both English and French. The selected 16 teams will receive tailored business coaching, professional guidance on finance, support on defining the climate impact potential of the innovative solution, preparation for future investment opportunities and a grant of €2,500 to get ready for funding from capital investors by the end of the programme. More information can be found here.
Looking to the future, EIT Climate-KIC and our partners continue to expand our support for adaptation and resilience businesses in areas of high climate risk. If you would like to learn more, please contact Sophie White – sophie.white@climate-kic.org