DFS Labs received over 700 applications from fintech start-ups across Africa and Asia wanting support. The highest potential companies are shortlisted and invited to a Fintech Bootcamp to refine their ideas and compete for seed funding. I served as a faculty for the third bootcamp in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in November 2017.
We simply facilitate teams through a Google Ventures Design Sprint over the period of a week. It is a frenetic process of digging through the havoc of a start-up to define a crucial problem, building potential solutions and live testing them.
However, the amount of insights that emerge from the process is impressive, as were the start-up ventures that attended this session. They included: Cherehani Africa (Kenya), We Cash Up (West Africa), Nobuntu (South Africa), Nala (Tanzania), Tani Fund (Indonesia), Numi (Kenya) and Turaco Ltd. (Kenya).