Deadline: July 25, 2026
Applications are open for the Accelerate Africa Startup Program 2026. The program accelerates Africa’s bold and visionary founders in the earliest stages of building global businesses that solve Africa’s biggest challenges.
The team of advisors and visiting partners, come with hands-on operating experience in Africa to help you accelerate your business, plus the scars and stories to prove it. For over a decade, the program has taken on various roles advising, coaching, and mentoring startups, including over 25+ who have been admitted to global accelerators.
They have built, funded and advised hundreds of African founding teams like Andela, Flutterwave, Moove, DukaConnect amongst others on how to build global businesses from Africa by solving Africa’s biggest challenges. Many of those businesses have grown to become billion dollar companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, or been acquired by global businesses like Mastercard and Shells.
Benefits
- They will accept 10 founders who will receive 1:1 support from advisors who have built, advised, invested in and exited multiple successful businesses in Africa.
- The program is designed to meet your needs as a founder in Africa, whether it be workshops across the 5 core areas, coaching sessions from top advisors, or tech, legal, and finance office hours. You build community with other founders facing similar challenges, leveraging each other as a network of support as you build your business.
- Finally, unlike most accelerators, they do not offer funding or take equity upon admittance. The Accelerate Africa fund offers an optional investment to all founders at the end of the program. Further, the fund Future Africa may invest a pre-seed or seed stage check of $250,000 – $500,000 after the program, following their standard investment process including due diligence and an IC vote.
Eligibility
- Open to startups from Africa;
- It is critical to have someone join you on the journey of founding a business, so to join the program, co-founder is a must. Preferably a balanced team that includes a female founder.
Application
For more information, visit Accelerate Africa Startup Program.
