Google’s Launchpad Accelerator Africa is preparing for the intake of its fourth class of startups as the third batch graduates.

As part of its ongoing efforts to support entrepreneurship in Africa, the Launchpad Accelerator Africa Class 3 incubated 12 startups from six African countries, namely Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.

All of the Class 3 startup ‘teams’, which were trained in machine learning technologies and are implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in their offerings, raised nearly $9-million in funding, created more than 120 jobs and attracted 270 000 users of their products and services.

“This represents an alignment towards building AI-first startups powered by Google technology,” says Launchpad Accelerator Africa head of startup success and services Fola Olatunji-David.

“If that potential is to be transformed into job creation, startups founded by those entrepreneurs need to grow,” he says of the vast entrepreneurial potential across Africa.

The graduating startups now form part of Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa’s alumni, along with the 23 startups from classes one and two, which together created 385 direct jobs and raised over $19-million before, during and after they participated in the programme.

“Google believes that empowering entrepreneurs and startups is essential to drive employment growth and enable both economic and social development on the continent. Google thrives when other business thrives,” he adds.

Now, Class 4 is preparing to launch later this year for a selected 10 to 12 African startups to complete the three-month acceleration programme.

Applications are open until July 26.

“The growth of entrepreneurship in Africa is critical to the survival of our continent. “We are currently a region creating about three-million jobs a year, while more than 11-million job seekers are entering the market,” comments Olatunji-David.

This year’s graduates from Nigeria include 54Gene, which improves drug discovery by researching multiple genetically diverse African populations; WellaHealth, which is an AI-driven pharmacy marketplace for affordable high-quality disease care; and ScholarX, an education startup that connects high-potential students with funding opportunities to help them advance in their studies.

In Kenya, Data Integrated, Kwara, OkHi and Tambua Health graduated.

The Tambua App turns a normal smartphone into a powerful, noninvasive diagnostic tool for tuberculosis and pneumonia, using a cough-sound acoustic signature, symptoms, risk factors and clinical information to compile a diagnostic report.

Data Integrated automates and digitises small and microenterprise (SME) payments, while Kwara provides a rich digital banking platform for established fair lenders, such as credit unions or savings and credit cooperatives, with an open application programming interface, or API, to enable and accelerate their inclusion into the formal financial ecosystem.

OkHi is a physical addressing platform for emerging markets, enabling some four-billion citizens without a physical address to be included.

A graduate from Senegal, PAPS, is a logistics startup focusing on last-mile delivery in the domestic market that features live tracking, an intelligent address system and automatic dispatch.

Swipe2pay, of Uganda, which provides a Web and mobile payments solution that makes it easy for SMEs to accept mobile as a mode of payment, and Egypt’s Instadiet.me, which connects patients to credible nutritionists and dieticians online to help them maintain a healthy and optimal weight, also graduated in Class 3.