Four Nigerian Startups Make Google’s 10th Africa Accelerator Cohort, Beating 2,600 Applicants
By Kede Aihie Nigeria’s tech scene just scored a major win. Four local startups—Bani, MasteryHive AI, Regxta, and Termii—have been named to the 10th cohort of Google for Startups Accelerator Africa. The selection was fierce. Out of nearly 2,600 applications from across the continent, only 15 companies made the final cut. That’s a sub-1% acceptance […]
Black News 
By Kede Aihie
Nigeria’s tech scene just scored a major win. Four local startups—Bani, MasteryHive AI, Regxta, and Termii—have been named to the 10th cohort of Google for Startups Accelerator Africa. The selection was fierce. Out of nearly 2,600 applications from across the continent, only 15 companies made the final cut. That’s a sub-1% acceptance rate, underscoring both the competition and the caliber of Nigeria’s founders.
This year’s Nigerian cohort is leaning hard into AI to solve regional pain points. Bani is building cross-border payments infrastructure to eliminate settlement delays for African businesses trading globally. MasteryHive AI runs an AI-native platform for automating transaction reconciliation, fraud detection, and AML monitoring. Regxta combines alternative data-driven credit scoring with a hybrid digital-agent model to deliver financial products to unbanked micro businesses. Termii rounds out the group, though details on its current focus were not included in the announcement.
The 10th cohort highlights a clear trend: African startups are moving beyond “tech for tech’s sake” and deploying AI against infrastructure gaps in payments, fraud, and financial inclusion. Google’s three-month accelerator gives selected startups up to $350K in Google Cloud credits, plus mentorship, product support, and access to Google’s network. For these Nigerian founders, it’s a runway to scale solutions built for Africa, from Africa.
