Touch and Pay (TAP), a cowry card payment system, has now been listed in the W22 Y Combinator batch, bringing the number of tech startups with Nigerian origin on the accelerator program to five.
The four Nigerian startups earlier listed that would be funded in this year’s accelerator programme include Moni, Topship, IdentityPass and Doja.
The probability that more Nigerian tech startups would get selected in the accelerator programme is very high as Nigerian tech startups are getting a lot of attention from the international community.
TAP intends to utilize its backing by the Y Combinator accelerator program to digitize cash-based microtransactions, expand across African markets and create a truly cashless ecosystem by mopping up cash across several sectors with technology.
The company has set out to build a unique mobile payment and services platform capturing offline and online transactions in a seamless way and to especially focus on the processing of microtransactions.
YC, which was launched in 2005, brings together over 100 startups from across the world to Silicon Valley twice a year (winter and summer) for a three-month accelerator programme that culminates into a Demo Day.
What they are saying
Co-founder and CEO of Touch and Pay, Oluwole Afolabi had this to say upon the company’s inclusion in the W22 accelerator program. “Touch and Pay plans to digitise the entire informal market with contactless cards and perhaps it could be a way to achieve true financial inclusion.”
The company has set out to transform the payment landscape in Nigeria and in Africa by facilitating financial inclusion and ensuring 99.9% reliability in cashless transaction processes in all sectors of the Nigerian economy.
What you should know about Touch and Pay
- Touch and Pay started operations in 2017 by Michael Oluwole and Olamide Afolabi with the aim of reducing the amount of physical cash in circulation by encouraging the use of electronics for payment for goods and services.
- The company tried different sectors before deciding to focus on digitizing transactions in the transportation sector. They soon started to work with LAGBUS, a Lagos State transportation system popularly known as BRT.
- The company has so far been able to get about 1.5 million Lagosians to adopt cashless rides and use its newly introduced cowry cards as a means of payment for BRT buses.
