500 Startups today unveiled it’s next 28 batch of startups for its Accelerator program. Dropifi, a Ghanaian startup is the first startup from Africa to join 500 startups accelerator program in Silicon Valley. 500 startups has in recent times been recruiting a lot more startups from overseas and this year’s batch includes 22 international companies. Dropifi founders are in Silicon Valley for 4 months. The program began mid-April, and 500 Startups expects to have its Demo Days in Mountain View, San Francisco, and New York City in July.
500 Startups is an early-stage seed fund and incubator program located in Mountain View, CA. 500 Startups invests primarily in consumer & SMB internet startups, and related web infrastructure services. Their initial investment size is typically $25K-$250K.
The program boasts of hundreds of experienced startup mentors around the world, creative work space in the heart of Silicon Valley, and a vibrant community of startup founders.
Dropifi traces its beginnings back to a Startup Weekend event in Accra, Ghana during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011. The app replaces “contact us” buttons with a smart widget that allows companies to better analyze and organize incoming messages.
The widget allows companies to learn more about the people sending the message and whether the messages’ content trends positive or negative. This gives companies critical insight to respond more effectively to existing and potential customers.
Dropifi ,a MEST company won the App of the year in the TopApps Award 2012 in Ghana, and also won the 2012 Global startup Open competition. The company has also been mentioned on several lists of most promising startups in the world including the Forbes top 20 African startups List.
Since launching on WordPress and Shopify late in 2012, Dropifi has recorded over 8,000 downloads on WordPress and over 900 Shopify stores are using the Dropifi widget to collect and analyze their incoming messages and leads.