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Segun Cole: The Visionary Behind EkoCab and Champion for African Entrepreneurs

Segun Cole: The Visionary Behind EkoCab and Champion for African Entrepreneurs

Segun Cole is a prominent Nigerian entrepreneur and investor known for his extensive work in the tech and mobility sectors.

He is the founder and CEO of EkoCab, an on-demand mobility marketplace that offers high-end ride services.

Cole’s career began as a New Mobility Consultant, advising governments on micromobility policies.

He has played significant roles in various African tech startups and is the President of Startup Huddle Lagos, which supports early-stage startups.

Segun attended Bells University of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on Human Resources and Personnel Administration.

In 2017, Segun founded EkoCab, which quickly became a buzz in Lagos due to its innovative approach to ride-hailing services.

Despite facing significant financial challenges and bootstrapping his business, Segun’s determination led him to delve into the world of venture capital and angel investing.

This experience highlighted the biases and challenges African entrepreneurs face, which fueled his drive to create systemic change in the funding landscape for local startups.

Noticing the disparity in venture capital allocation to African startups, Segun founded Fund the Gap Alliance.

This organization addresses the underrepresentation of local founders in the venture capital ecosystem.

Fund the Gap Alliance has successfully raised capital for startups from 54 African countries and 26 countries globally.

The alliance focuses on educating both startups and investors, leveraging data-driven approaches, and providing mentorship and coaching to help startups succeed.

Segun is a well-known ecosystem builder and currently serves as the President of Startup Huddle Lagos, a community that supports 235 startups from pre-series to Series C stages.

His leadership extends to various roles, including International Partner at the World Business Angel Fund, Venture Partner at Wefunder, Openner.VC, and Zero to One Capital.

He is also a member of the SEC working committee on Angel Investment and Venture Capital in Nigeria (Machinelab Ventures (MLVP)) (AI Summit London 2024).

Throughout his career, Segun has been driven by a passion for mentoring and supporting other entrepreneurs.

His efforts are particularly focused on bridging the gender funding gap and empowering female founders.

He believes that investing in women is not charity but a smart economic strategy that stimulates growth and equality.

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Shehab Marzban

Marzban is an Egyptian venture capitalist passionate about supporting entrepreneurship and innovation in the MENA region.

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Nigeria’s Intron Health Secures $1.6 Million to Revolutionize African Healthcare with AI

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Nigeria's Intron Health Secures $1.6 Million to Revolutionize African Healthcare with AI

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Intron Health, a pioneering Nigerian health-tech startup, has successfully raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Microtraction.

The investment, which also saw participation from renowned investors like Plug and Play Ventures and Octopus Ventures, will fuel the company’s mission to transform healthcare delivery in Africa through advanced speech recognition technology.

Intron Health has developed a groundbreaking clinical speech recognition platform that accurately converts spoken medical terminology into text, even in the presence of heavy accents.

This innovative solution enables healthcare workers to streamline documentation, reduce administrative burdens, and ultimately improve patient care.

With over 3,000 languages spoken in Africa, the startup has overcome significant challenges to build a robust platform capable of understanding diverse accents and dialects.

By creating Africa’s largest clinical speech dataset, Intron Health has trained its AI models to achieve up to 92% accuracy in medical transcription.

The fresh capital will be invested in expanding research, strengthening cloud and on-premise capabilities, and broadening the platform’s reach across the continent.

Intron Health also plans to bolster its team with top tech talent to drive product development and market expansion.

“We are excited to partner with such a strong group of investors who share our vision of leveraging technology to improve healthcare in Africa,” said Tobi Olatunji, Founder and CEO of Intron Health.

“This funding will accelerate our growth and enable us to make a greater impact on the lives of healthcare providers and patients.”

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