We had previously reported on the new BeEntrepreneurs project, which took place in Nairobi, in this article. Now, with the demo day hosted at the residence of the Italian Ambassador in Nairobi, the programme has come to a close. This free acceleration programme was designed for East African start-ups ready to scale up and establish a firm foothold within the network of European investors, mentors and partners.
The winners of this year’s edition are the Kenyan start-ups Silo Africa Networks and Chumz, and the Ugandan start-ups BuriCare and Tegu Systems – the latter having received a special mention – which were judged to be the most promising by a panel comprising local impact investors and venture capitalists.
• Silo Africa Networks (agritech) – provides smart, airtight silos fitted with IoT sensors that monitor temperature, humidity and CO₂ levels to protect stored grain, enabling farmers to store cereals safely without the use of chemicals. The result is a significant reduction in post-harvest losses and easier access to lucrative markets.
• BuriCare (healthtech) – a social enterprise that develops ergonomic ‘Kangaroo Mother Care’ baby carriers fitted with sensors for real-time monitoring of heart rate, temperature and oxygen levels. The solution has been designed to improve the survival rates of premature babies in low-resource settings, where access to incubators remains limited.
• Chumz (fintech) – a savings and investment platform that uses mobile money, gamification and behavioural psychology to help people build more solid savings habits. It is designed primarily for those with limited access to traditional financial services, offering the chance to start saving and investing even with small amounts.
• Tegu Systems (regtech), which received a special mention for its Verify Sentinel platform, provides a B2B infrastructure for identity verification, risk assessment and last-mile verification, automating the verification of geographical location and residence. The solution enables banks, insurance companies, fintech firms and logistics operators to reliably verify a person’s location and whether they actually reside in a particular place, even in situations where traditional personal details are incomplete or unreliable.
The winning start-ups will take centre stage in November at the Italian roadshow, designed to strengthen their ties with the European innovation ecosystem. During the three stops in Catanzaro, Rome and Milan, the start-ups will have the opportunity to take part in a programme combining meetings with SMEs, other start-ups and research centres, institutional events and opportunities to engage with the corporate sector within the Italian network of system integrators, as well as with angel investors and venture capital firms.
The interest generated and the success in terms of participation in HERO’s first call are clear indications of the programme’s great potential, which aims to bridge the gap between infrastructure, skills and market access, thereby fostering the growth of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the field of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technologies.
Aimed at early-stage start-ups in key sectors such as logistics, tourism, cleantech, agritech, edtech, fintech, healthtech, the blue economy and digital technology, the call attracted 324 applications from 23 countries, involving a total of 466 founders, a third of whom were women. From these, 20 finalist start-ups were selected, confirming HERO’s ability to attract a pan-African and globally connected ecosystem.
81 per cent of applications come from the programme’s five target countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda – whilst Kenya alone, the venue for the demo day, accounts for 49 per cent of the total. Another significant figure relates to the maturity of the applicant start-ups: 63 per cent already have a product on the market with active users or paying customers.
From among the hundreds of applications, 20 were selected to take part in a week-long intensive acceleration programme at HackHouse Africa in Westlands from 3 to 6 August, attending workshops on pitching, business models, fundraising and storytelling, as well as mentoring sessions and a panel discussion with investors: a process that culminated in the selection of the three overall winners.
Since 2017, BeEntrepreneurs APS has supported over 200 start-ups and trained more than 500 entrepreneurs across six African countries, raising over 17 million euros.
Kenya is now home to one of the most dynamic start-up ecosystems on the world’s youngest continent, with founders developing solutions in the fintech, agritech, digital health and clean energy sectors. It is not talent or ideas that are lacking, but access to capital, international networks and foreign markets.
Ambassador Vincenzo Del Monaco attended the ceremony to announce the four winning start-ups, selected from 324 entries received. He had followed and supported the process, recognising the initiative’s strategic value, not least within the context of the Mattei Plan for Africa.
“Returning to Nairobi and re-establishing links with the Kenyan ecosystem was an incredibly valuable experience. In a week at HackHouse, we distilled what we have believed in for almost ten years: a five-day bootcamp, seven workshops, 24 hours of one-to-one mentoring and two fireside chats with founders and investors, during which the start-ups turned their hard work into tangible progress. But the real outcome is the connections: the more than 70 people brought together by Hello Tractor and the over 150 who attended the demo day at the Ambassador’s residence demonstrate the involvement of an entire ecosystem. “The most significant aspect was seeing the founders’ growth and the ease with which they learnt to support one another: we are confident that the roadshow in Italy will reinforce this impact,” says Susanna Ercolani, HERO programme lead and board member of BeEntrepreneurs, in a statement.
“Next year will mark ten years since the first Startup Africa Roadtrip, and returning to Nairobi has reaffirmed one thing for me: Kenya is now the place to be for anyone wishing to support the East African start-up ecosystem. In all my time working in the field, this has been the most vibrant acceleration week I can remember: founders who were present, receptive and displayed a surprising level of maturity, and an energy that you can feel everywhere in Nairobi. It is a young but already well-rounded ecosystem, where operators, investors, corporates, international organisations and entrepreneurs with successful companies behind them work side by side. For anyone wishing to connect with the region’s top talent and best start-ups, there’s never been a better time than now: this is precisely why the Startup Africa Roadtrip was launched – to bring Italy and Europe to where innovation is truly taking off,” Andrea Censoni, who leads the activities at BeEntrepreneurs, tells Startupbusiness.
The Nairobi event marks a new stage in the process that began in February 2026 with the official presentation of the initiative at the Nairobi AI Forum, continued in April during Kenyan President William Ruto’s visit with the ‘Growing Together Through Partnership’ event in Rome, and with the launch of the HERO call at Gitex Kenya 2026 last May. This journey clearly illustrates the two strategic frameworks that the Italian and Kenyan governments are pursuing with determination: the Mattei Plan for Africa, the programme through which Italy aims to build a new model of equal partnership with the African continent, and the AI 10 Billion Initiative, co-led by the African Development Bank and the UNDP AI Hub, the $10 billion multilateral programme designed to make Africa a global leader in artificial intelligence. Within this framework, HERO stands as a strategic building block for economic and technological cooperation between Italy and East Africa, consistent with the shared development objectives promoted by both initiatives. The next chapter will unfold in November, when the three winning start-ups will take centre stage at the Italian Roadshow, a further stage in a programme aimed at training 5,000 African entrepreneurs over five years, at least 35 per cent of whom will be women.
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