Nine African tech startups are among the 117 so far revealed to be taking place in the Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator, receiving US$125,000 each in seed funding as well as further investment opportunities at a demo day. Nine of the startups so far named are from Africa, with Nigeria and Egypt leading the way with three each. The Nigerian representatives are Mecho Autotech, which connects car users with mechanics and smart part vendors; Suplias, a B2B marketplace for mom and pop stores; and Lemonade Finance, a multi-currency payments solution. Egypt is represented by licensed online insurance brokerage Amenli, car parts marketplace Odiggo and ShipBlu, a last mile e-commerce delivery and fulfillment company. Morocco has two representatives in the form of Chari, an e-commerce and fintech app for traditional retailers, and Freterium, a collaborative SaaS platform that connects organisations, people and technologies in the logistics value chain, while South Africa’s Floatpays, an on-demand wage access platform, completes the list. Y Combinator is perhaps the world’s most famous accelerator, and is increasingly selecting African tech startups to take part in its programme. Its alumni features continental royalty such as Flutterwave, Paystack and Kobo360 (not to mention Cowrywise MarketForce, Kudi, WaystoCap, WorkPay, Healthlane, Trella, 54gene, CredPal, NALA and Breadfast).