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Six African startups presented their businesses at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the largest connectivity event in the world, held in Barcelona.

The event brought together more than 88,500 telecom operators, entrepreneurs, corporations, and public institutions with the goal of creating meaningful partnerships through connectivity.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) and GSMA launched a Working Group in September, aiming to bring connectivity to more small businesses in underserved countries.

During the event, the African companies, representing Benin, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, participated in the 4YFN innovation hall, which stands for “4 Years From Now,” reflecting the vision of looking to the future.

For the African tech startups, the exhibition presented an opportunity to showcase Africa’s technology beyond borders, secure business opportunities, and promote financial inclusion, as technology connects people to digital services, especially in Africa, where a large population relies on mobile money rather than traditional banks.

Among the presented companies were Sparco, a Zambian start-up that won a global pitch battle for financial tech companies, and companies from Benin, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, which work in both financial (fintech) and marketing technology (martech).

Beem in Tanzania and LAfricaMobile in Senegal are marketing platforms that help people access several services that help companies improve customer communications.

Sparco, ChapChap and GnuGrid in Uganda, and FedaPay in Benin ease access to financial services and credit scoring.

These companies ease access to financial services, credit scoring, and help people access several services that help companies improve customer communications.

The ITC Pavilion, located in the heart of the event, gave the start-ups direct access to major connectivity and mobile industry players, facilitating connections and business leads.

Companies that already had clients and partners in Europe further anchored themselves in the European market and strengthened existing relationships.

Director General of GSMA, Granryd Mats highlighted the ongoing partnership with ITC, which positions small businesses at the heart of connectivity and emphasizes how fintechs and mobile money promote financial inclusion in Africa.

Head of sales at LAfricaMobile (one of the showcased companies), Anta Ba said, “We are super thrilled to have participated in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a place where we witnessed ground-breaking advancements in 5G technology, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, and beyond. Attending the event is the best way to benchmark products, technologies and solutions that can be profitable for our continent throughout all innovations. We have also met significant potential customers, opportunities as we look to connect the rest of the world to the population in Africa. Now on to work to materialize all this!”