Ghanaian startup Dropifi has become the first African company to join the 500 Startups Accelerator Program in Silicon Valley.
Founded in 2011 and graduates of the impressive Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), the company will spend three months at 500 Start Ups head office in Mountain View and an extra month taking part in the program’s Demo Days and final investor meetings.
Dropifi were invited to join the program due to a meeting with Dave McClure, 500 Startups Founder, while they were in Rio to pick up a Kauffman Foundation-backed award at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress.
“Dropifi is the first African investment for 500 Startups. Very few seed investors in Silicon Valley will put money into markets as early as Africa, but we think differently. Dropifi has a killer team and a promising product with global reach. The fact that they hail from Ghana makes it even cooler,” explains Dave McClure.
Customers who use the Dropifi contact widget can see incoming message trending data in relation to industry metrics, see the demographic and social media profiles of the message senders and analyse the real sentiment behind the messages they receive.
Since launching on WordPress and Shopify late in 2012 there have been more than 8,000 downloads on WordPress and 900 Shopify stores are using the Dropifi widget to collect and analyze their incoming messages and leads.
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
