Black Swan, a Mauritius-based FinTech startup, has been named the winner of the MEST Africa Challenge (MAC) 2025, following a high-energy Grand Finale at Innovation City, Cape Town.
Led by the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST Africa) and powered by Absa Group, the MEST Africa Challenge is one of the continent’s leading Pan-African pitch competitions, providing a platform for early-stage startups to secure funding, mentorship, and global visibility. MAC 2025 attracted hundreds of applications from eight of Absa’s priority markets, including Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Seychelles, and Mauritius.
The 2025 edition turned its focus to FinTech, spotlighting startups and embedded financial solutions driving inclusion, smarter payments, and digital transformation across Africa’s economies.
Co-founded by Derick Kazimoto, Black Swan is on a mission to “Make Africa Bankable.” Across Africa, millions of consumers and MSMEs remain invisible to formal lenders because their data is fragmented, informal, and difficult to verify—a gap that locks out capable borrowers and limits credit growth.
Black Swan tackles this challenge by turning fragmented data into instant credit intelligence that enables precise affordability assessments and inclusive lending at scale. Its platform helps financial institutions see real risk, unlocking new pathways for growth and economic mobility across the continent.
