Aifluence, an influencer marketing platform, wins Kenyan edition of Visa innovation contest | aptantech

AIfluence, an AI-driven Influencer Marketing Platform has been named as the winner of the Kenya edition of the 2023 Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), a global innovation program and competition for start-ups and fintech companies.

AIfluence, received a $20,000 monetary prize and progresses to the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) regional finals. The winning start-up at the CEMEA Regionals will participate in the global finale, which will be held in September in San Francisco.

(TOP: Founder and CEO of AIfluence, Nelson Aseka – centre – receiving the dummy cheque of $20,000 monetary prize after being announced the winner of the Kenya edition of the 2023 Visa Everywhere Initiative  – VEI).

Other winners include, Leja who won the audience favorite award while the social impact prize went to Ndovu with the two Fintechs each receiving $10,000.

“We are delighted to announce the winners of the Visa Everywhere Initiative Kenya competition. This competition has demonstrated the wealth of solutions that exist to solve our country’s current and future commerce challenges. We are proud to recognise these start-ups who have exhibited remarkable innovation and a deep commitment to making a positive impact in their sectors,” said Eva Ngigi-Sarwari, the acting GM for East Africa at Visa.

More than 200 applicants entered the competition from across the country, each with solutions aimed at delivering innovative payment and commerce solutions to consumers and businesses.

AIfluence is a technology driven advertising platform that identifies trusted voices that engage, nurture, and activate the right audience to accelerate customer acquisition and growth for global brands. The platform focuses on taking advantage of the budding creator economy by boosting financial literacy, development of payment solutions and the provision of tools and resources to enhance the sector.

“This is not only a win for AIfluence but a win for the continent. We are looking to empower the young people in the creator economy by helping them build sustainable businesses and collaborating with Visa will provide tremendous synergies that will empower the youth of this continent. The Visa Everywhere Initiative has provided opportunities for those of us in underserved sectors to showcase our solutions and it is an honour to be this year’s winner of the Kenya edition,” said Nelson Aseka, the CEO of AIfluence.

Leja is a finance management app for micro, small and medium sized enterprises focused on building financial infrastructure for MSMEs while Ndovu is an embedded wealth management platform aimed at building a savings and infrastructure ecosystem.

The CEMEA finals will be livestreamed on July 27, 2023, on TechCrunch, a US-based online publisher focused on the tech industry and the start-up ecosystem.

Visa Everywhere Initiative is an open innovation program that helps start-ups unlock new opportunities and gives them a global platform to demonstrate their ground-breaking solutions. The program first launched in the US in 2015, and quickly expanded into a global program. To date, 8,500 start-ups have participated, and have collectively raised more than $16 billion in funding.

The Visa Everywhere Initiative is open to all start-ups who offer innovative solutions to the payments and commerce challenges of tomorrow. It also helps support start-ups and fintech in two ways: