Aya Holding

Aya Holding, Inc., operating as AyaHQ, runs incubation and technical training programs for early-stage founders and builders, with a focus on Africa and stated ambitions to extend the model to other markets. Its incubation track admits founders at a pre-product and pre-revenue stage, while its training track delivers hands-on instruction in product design, product management and smart contract engineering, organizing participants into teams of developer, designer and product manager that finish with a working product. The company also convenes builder summits, hackathon-style collective challenges and community programming.

The company additionally operates Ayagigs, a talent marketplace connecting businesses with vetted African web3 freelancers and full-time talent, positioned as a way for employers to hire at lower cost while freelancers access global gigs. Talent supplied through the marketplace is trained under a framework the company describes as PACE (problem-solving, adapting, creative, empathetic), and the company has stated an aspiration to reach ten million African talents able to work remotely.

AyaHQ serves four stated constituencies: founders, fund managers and development finance institutions seeking a filtered pipeline with supporting data, commercial partners funding outcome-based programs, and universities and policy bodies. Its portfolio includes ElementPay, DigitPay Finance, ClapMi, CryptoMomo, Planbok, Soccersm and LearnWay.

Business model

The organization combines program delivery with a talent marketplace. Incubation and training cohorts are run either independently or funded by commercial partners, most notably Lisk, which has underwritten four cohorts; institutional and ecosystem partners including universities, Coinbase Giving, the Ethereum Foundation and the World Food Programme (EMPACT) support additional training and ecosystem engagements. Through Ayagigs, businesses hire vetted web3 talent from Africa, with the company positioning the marketplace as a "Talent Supply Marketplace as a Service."

Revenue-related sources describe commercial partnerships that fund cohorts delivered against partner-set outcomes, and a talent marketplace through which employers hire vetted African web3 freelancers at rates described as up to 40% below typical cost.

Traction

Reported records include 80+ startups incubated over six cohorts (two run independently and four delivered with Lisk), 778 applications from 25+ countries with a roughly 1-in-10 admission rate, 112 training graduates across two cohorts reaching 34+ countries, and alumni that have collectively processed more than $5 million in transactions and generated over $200,000 in revenue, described as roughly ten times the capital AyaHQ has deployed into the pipeline.

Latest developments

The company website describes four incubation cohorts delivered with Lisk, its first and only closed commercial partner, signed university partnerships with GCTU and UEW, ecosystem engagements with Coinbase Giving, the Ethereum Foundation and the World Food Programme (EMPACT), and a stated expansion of the model beyond Africa. Disrupting Ventures is listed as a backer.