Former TikTok engineer collects $100,000 in pre-seed funding to develop an app store specializing in AI tools across Africa
In the dynamic landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), a DR Congo-based startup named Yamify is making waves by providing AI cloud infrastructure tailored for emerging African markets.
Yamify, an "app store for AI tools", offers a platform that enables users to deploy open-source AI applications such as chatbots, automation agents, video generators, and language models with just a click, eliminating the need for in-house cloud expertise. The company's strategy is centred around local currency billing and local data centre hosting, making AI accessible and affordable for African developers and enterprises.
One of Yamify's unique selling points is its Model Context Protocol (MCP) feature. This innovative tool allows users to describe the AI tool they want in a chat interface and provision it instantly, drastically reducing AI deployment time from days to minutes.
Luc Okalobe, the founder of Yamify and a former cloud engineer at TikTok and Salesforce with over 15 years' experience, emphasizes community-led growth. He organizes hackathons and workshops to support local ecosystems and foster AI adoption on the continent.
Yamify's GPU-powered clusters, known as "YAMs", are hosted in Nigeria, Congo, and South Africa, with global cloud providers as backup. The company's cost advantage comes from Okalobe's team's expertise in cloud cost optimisation, using open-source infrastructure like Kubernetes, detecting idle workloads, and shutting them down automatically.
Currently, Yamify is in private beta and has already attracted developers, fintechs, and web agencies across Lagos, Kinshasa, Brazzaville, and Johannesburg. The company has raised $100,000 in pre-seed funding and is seeking another $100,000 to close its round.
With a goal of onboarding 100,000 users within six months, Yamify aims to cater to Africa's fast-growing developer market. Users can run unrestricted open-source editions of AI tools and pay in local currencies like naira, M-Pesa, or MTN MoMo. Okalobe measures success not just by revenue but also by developers telling others that Yamify helped them launch their projects.
As the demand for AI continues to grow in Africa, Yamify stands as a promising solution, bridging the gap between AI technology and the African developer community. With its focus on community-led growth, localized infrastructure, and instant AI prototype creation, Yamify is well on its way to becoming the default AI infrastructure layer for Africa's next generation of startups, with aspirations of achieving $1 million in annual revenue.
