Africa Has Its First Startup Fund Built Entirely Around Disability Tech
Quick Reads
- A Kenya-based nonprofit has teamed up with an Australian foundation to launch Africa’s first early-stage investment fund dedicated entirely to assistive technology startups.
- The Momentous Pilot Fund is worth $500,000 and will back up to five African ventures building tech solutions for people with disabilities.
- Supported startups will receive funding, technical assistance, and venture-building support to help their products grow.
- The World Health Organisation estimates that nearly 200 million people in Africa need at least one assistive product, but only one in ten can currently access what they need.
- The fund is designed as a pilot with data gathered from this phase set to shape a larger, continent-wide disability innovation financing programme.
The Problem It Is Trying to Solve
Assistive technology refers to any product or system, digital or physical, that helps people with disabilities perform tasks they would otherwise struggle with. Think of apps that convert speech to sign language in real time, software that reads screens aloud for people who are blind, or devices that support mobility for people who cannot walk unaided. These products exist globally, but in Africa, access to them remains critically low.
AT4D, founded in 2023 by Bernard Chiira, works to change that by supporting innovators building such tools across the continent. Now, through the program, it is putting money directly behind up to five early-stage startups. Each selected venture will receive not just capital, but also technical assistance, venture-building support, and access to strategic partnerships, the kind of hands-on scaffolding that early-stage founders often need as much as cash.
“Early-stage assistive technology innovators across Africa face significant structural barriers to accessing capital,” said Bernard Chiira, CEO of AT4D. “This is the first fund on the continent dedicated to investing in emerging assistive technology startups at the early stage. The Momentous Fund allows us to test an investment model that centres lived experience while strengthening the ecosystem required to scale disability innovation across Africa.”
How the Fund Works
AT4D is not starting from scratch. It already runs the Innovate Now accelerator, which has supported startups including Signverse, a platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and three-dimensional avatars to translate spoken words and text into sign language in real time alongside mobility device company Linccell Technologies and edtech platform Village2Nation. The Momentous Fund builds on that groundwork with a dedicated financial vehicle.
What makes the Momentous Fund particularly significant is its design as a proof of concept. The insights gathered from this first phase are intended to inform the structure of a second, larger fund. If the pilot demonstrates that early-stage assistive tech ventures can grow and generate returns, it could shift how both African and international investors think about this space.
The fund is also notable for being Africa-led. AT4D is a Kenyan organisation with deep knowledge of the continent’s disability innovation landscape. That local grounding matters, assistive technology built for African contexts, by teams embedded in African communities, is more likely to reach the people who need it most.
