In A Male Dominated Industry, Here Are Some Female Startup Founders That Have Made Their Mark

Over the years, the startup space in Africa has seen tremendous growth across various sections like health, insurance, e-commerce, social commerce, and the most popular of them all – Finance. In a space that has seen tremendous growth and has become a hot spot for investments from investors from various parts of the world, it is still a male-dominated space.

According to research published in January 2022 by Statista Research Department, “the co-founder and C-level positions of startups in Africa were largely occupied by men. Approximately 85 percent of these positions were occupied by men, while only 15 percent were occupied by women.”

Today, Africa boasts of numerous successful startups across various fields that are meeting the needs of people and solving many of the challenges that have plagued the continent. But the question is how many of these startups were founded by women or are female-led?

Although the numbers are small, there are a handful of female-founded or female-led startups that are making waves across Africa. Not only are they relevant in their field, in terms of funding, management and valuation, but these startups are doing so well compared to their male-led counterparts.

In this article, we’ll be discussing some of our favorite female founders that have made their mark in a male-dominated space. Let’s dive into it!

Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson

Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson

If you’ve ever heard about Nigerian health tech startup Healthtracka, then you most likely should have heard about the company’s founder and CEO Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson. The Lagos-based startup which raised $1.5 million in its seed funding round last month was founded by Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson and Victor Amusan.  Before Healthtracka, she worked in the healthcare industry. The need to reduce cases that worsened because of late diagnosis was the major reason she founded the startup. Her dad died from a late diagnosis of diabetes and hypertension which remained undetected for quite a long time. With Healthtracka, she wants to combat the challenges, such as poor infrastructure, poor doctor-to-patient ratio, slow consultation time, etc., that lead to negligence of health by people. Commending the CEO after the startup raised its seed funding, Maya Horgan Famodu, founder of Ingressive Capital, said that “Ifeoluwa is hungry and very bright. Not only did we anonymously use HealthTracka’s services in diligence and have a 10/10 experience, we recognized truly what this could become across the continent, even from just interacting with her team for tests. The product is high quality, on time, affordable, and unlocking the door for a healthier Africa.” 

Honey Ogundeyi

Honey Ogundeyi

For us at Techbooky, Honey Ogundeyi is one of our favorite founders. This is because this female founder is looking to revamp Nigeria’s educational sector. She founded Edukoya in May 2021 with the aim of taking services provided by offline test preparation centers in the country online and providing after-school guidance and tutoring for students planning to take specific examinations. Before Edukoya, she was an executive at the digital bank Kuda. She is also a serial entrepreneur. Edukoya once held the title of raising the largest pre-seed funding in Africa. It also made our list of African startups to watch out for in 2022.

Tao Boyle

Tao Boyle

Tao Boyle is the co-founder of FoondaMate, an edtech startup assisting students (high school) with their revision by providing the answers to questions as well as access to revision papers using chatbots on WhatsApp and Facebook. FoondaMate has been described as an AI teacher and a personalized and highly-responsive search engine by students. Tao Boyle describes herself as an avid reader and likes to hike when she has the time. She is from South Africa.

Jessica Anuna

Jessica Anuna

Klasha was founded in 2018 by founder and CEO Jessica Anuna. It was initially a platform designed to enable Africans to have access to global fashion retailers and be able to purchase goods directly from them. The startup eventually expanded into providing APIs and various integrations that facilitates cross-border payments in Africa. The business model with which the company operates allows Africans to acquire goods directly from retailers and sellers irrespective of where they are in Africa, and to make payments.

Jihan Abbas

Jihan Abass

Jihan Abbas is the founder of Kenyan startup Lami. The startup is an online insurance platform and serves as an enabler that allows its partner businesses like tech companies, local banks, etc., to be able to use the platform to offer digital insurance products to their customers/clients. Individuals can also access insurance services on the platform. Jihan Abbas loves being in the water and activities like deep fishing and waterboarding are her favourites.

Tomilola Majekodunmi

Tomilola Majekodunmi

Tomilola Majekodunmi is a Nigerian founder known for Bankly, a fintech digitalizing thrift savings. Bankly is all about digitalizing cash for the unbanked and one of its main aims is to digitalize the informal thrift collections systems that are currently the order of the day in the country. Bankly revolves around the traditional thrift collections system which is popularly referred to as ajo, esusu or adashe in Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa languages respectively. The last time we checked, Bankly had over 15,000 agents nationwide. It plans to build its customer base to 2 million in three years.

Fara Ashiru Jituboh

Fara Ashiru Jituboh

Okra is a startup helping developers and businesses to build personalized digital financial service products. The startup is currently operational in Nigeria and is in beta mode in Kenya and South Africa. The startup likes to describe itself as an API “super-connector” that creates a secure portal and process to exchange real-time financial information between customers, applications, and banks.

          Although there are challenges such as bias from investors and the need to go the extra mile in a male-dominated industry, these female founders (and more) have proved that women can be successful in the startup space too. Although the numbers are quite low at the moment, these female founders give reasons to believe that equilibrium, or at least something close to it, can be reached between men and women in the startup space in the future.