Startups on Our Radar is a bi-weekly column that highlights emerging startups across Africa taking fresh, unconventional approaches, filling fundamental gaps, and creating real value. Know a founder we’d love to feature? Nominate them here.
In our previous edition, we featured 10 game-changing startups pioneering ride-hailing, seafarming, and CO₂ reduction. Expect the next dispatch on August 22, 2025.
Let’s dive into this week’s picks.
1. Kindlybook — Free, seamless booking & payment software (Booking‑tech, Nigeria)
What they do: Launched in 2024 by Charles Dairo, Kindlybook offers a free appointment scheduling platform tailored to service‑based businesses (salons, spas, fitness trainers, consultants), enabling clients to pick slots and pay upfront—complete with SMS/email reminders.
Why we’re watching: What sets this company apart is the founder’s background. Before this, they ran an agency that developed bespoke SaaS solutions for businesses, so they know exactly what it takes to ship real products, solve customer pain points, and scale software across different markets.
Kindlybook has the potential to become the pan-African leader for appointment scheduling, built natively for the realities of Africa’s informal economy.
2. Wetrocloud — Plug‑and‑play RAG APIs for AI applications (AI‑infra, Global/Africa)
What they do: Founded by Divine Erhomonsele, Michael Aluko, Jeremiah-louis Obobairibhojie, Afolabi Sokeye, and Einstein Ebereonwu in 2024, Wetrocloud is building the AI stack that automation experts use to power the future of AI-driven business workflows. Branded as the “AI Stack for Automations,” Wetrocloud provides a unified set of APIs for data scraping, data extraction, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and more, allowing automation engineers to integrate LLMs and intelligent systems into their business logic with ease. Instead of stitching together fragile scripts or juggling scattered tools, teams now use Wetrocloud to plug AI capabilities directly into the workflows they’re already building, simplifying what used to take weeks into minutes.
Why we’re watching: Wetrocloud isn’t trying to be the automation tool; it wants to become the essential toolkit behind all of them. Just as Stripe powers payments and Twilio powers messaging, Wetrocloud is emerging as the go-to infrastructure layer for AI automation. With deep expertise across cloud and artificial intelligence, the founding team is building with the automation experts in mind, someone who doesn’t need another platform UI, but clean, scalable APIs that “just work.”
In a world where every business wants AI to power their internal workflows, Wetrocloud is betting big on enabling the automation experts to make it happen, and they might just be right.
3. Storipod — Micro‑blogging “Stori” platform meets creator marketplace (Social‑tech, Nigeria/US)
What they do: Storipod is a mobile-first microblogging platform designed for storytelling in short, serial “Stori” formats—think WhatsApp‑status meets Substack. It supports monetization through locked content and creator tools. African content creators often struggle to monetize text-based stories. Storipod integrates audience engagement with paid content access, monetization, and community tools.
Why we’re watching: There’s a world where writing platforms finally work for African creators. Storipod is building that world. Just like the way Substack is changing the game for creators globally, Storipod wants to do the same for Africans. With 64,000 users and early Nigerian creator success stories, it’s building a new social‑writing ecosystem.
4. gamp — Device insurtech + repair service (Insurtech, Nigeria)
What they do: gamp offers end-to-end insurance protection for phones, laptops, and other consumer electronics in Nigeria—covering accidental damage and repairs. gamp also provides a lifecycle management platform where businesses can procure laptops, provision software, insure devices, process repairs, track hardware across offices, and manage compliance, all from a single dashboard.
Why we’re watching: With over 130 million devices in Nigeria, gamp targets a massive, underserved market. It combines insurance with repair services, cutting friction and improving consumer trust. It’s a scalable model that mirrors global giants like Asurion, but is built for local realities.
Gamp is also among the early movers on the continent and could target continental domination if it nails its presence in Nigeria. It’s also worth noting that insurance is a proven, highly profitable global business, and Nigeria’s insurance sector itself is rapidly expanding, showing an annual growth rate above 8% into 2025. If gamp executes well, its insurance arm could drive meaningful revenue and repeat business—setting them up for long-term success with a recurring, resilient business model.
5. Unboxd.co — One-stop event management platform (Event‑tech, Nigeria)
What they do: Launched in 2021 by Ridwan Egbeyemi, Unboxd consolidates ticketing, event websites, check‑in tools, and merch sales into a unified platform. It supports card and wallet payments, promotional features, and seamless event management.
Why we’re watching: Event organisers often struggle with using several different tools for ticketing, payments, promotion, and engaging attendees. Unboxd.co solves this by bringing everything together in one platform, making it much simpler to run and manage events seamlessly—from ticket sales to promotion and attendee experience.
There’s also a big opportunity here: with its full suite of features, Unboxd.co has the potential to surpass existing event platforms. By offering an all-in-one solution, it could become the top choice for event management across Africa, and possibly globally. If Unboxd.co delivers on its promise, it might just become the go-to platform for organisers everywhere, helping shape the future of events on the continent and beyond.
6. Plaude —Transforming cross-border trade for SMEs (Fintech, Nigeria)
Launched in 2024 by Olatomiwa Idowu and Ibukunoluwa Adebayo, Plaude enables SMEs to perform cross-border transactions seamlessly by offering same-day payouts, instant notifications, 24/7 availability, and completed transactions in under 180 seconds. The fintech also integrates currency exchange, real-time tracking, and a decentralized trade finance system.
Why we are watching: Plaude claims to have processed a huge chunk of revenue in a short period since it launched. The fintech launched its product in October 2024, but has processed $13 million in transactions. The platform currently serves about 10 active B2B users.
7. Xara — Making banking as easy as chatting (Fintech, Nigeria)
Xara is a Nigerian fintech startup making banking as simple as chatting. Built as an AI-powered WhatsApp assistant, it allows users to send money, pay bills, and track spending—directly inside WhatsApp, which is used by the majority of Nigeria’s social media population. Launched in June 2025 by software engineer Sulaiman Adewale, Xara leverages a multimodal AI system trained on text, images, and Nigerian speech patterns to make financial interactions feel as natural as casual messaging.
Users can snap a photo of account details and make payments instantly. Security is a core focus: transactions are protected by WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, an optional 4-digit PIN, and data minimisation by only logging transaction metadata for dispute resolution. Within just weeks of launch, Xara signed up 10,000 users and processed over ₦135 million in payments—demonstrating strong early adoption.
Why we are watching: With social commerce booming in Nigeria, Xara is positioned to become the go-to payment layer for buyers and sellers who use WhatsApp to close deals. Instead of leaving the chat to complete a transaction, customers can pay, confirm, and track everything within the conversation, slashing friction for business owners and buyers alike
That’s all for today. Our next dispatch arrives on August 22, 2025. Know a startup we should feature next? Nominate here.
Mark your calendars! Moonshot by is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot..com.
