Yamify, a DR Congo-based AI infrastructure startup that helps freelancers, startups, and businesses deploy AI instruments on native and international cloud servers, has raised $100,000 in pre-seed funding from Felix Anane, an early backer of Paystack.
The corporate will use the capital to fund the launch of its flagship Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) function that enables customers describe the AI instrument they need in a chat window and have it provisioned immediately. Yamify is looking for one other $100,000 to shut its spherical.
Most cloud AI infrastructure is designed for enterprise groups within the U.S. or Europe, billed in {dollars}, and assumes entry to in-house cloud engineers—a mismatch for Africa’s fast-growing however cost-sensitive developer market. Yamify bets that with one-click entry to open-source AI instruments, hosted on GPU clusters in African information centres and billed in native currencies, the continent’s freelancers, startups, and businesses can deploy working AI merchandise in minutes as an alternative of days.
Based in 2024 by Luc Okalobé, a former cloud engineer at TikTok and Salesforce with over 15 years’ expertise, Yamify operates like an app retailer for AI — chatbots, automation brokers, video turbines, and language fashions — however with the server room included. Its GPU-powered clusters (“YAMs”) are hosted in Nigeria, Congo, and South Africa, with international cloud suppliers as backup. As an alternative of $20-a-month SaaS licences, customers can run unrestricted open-source editions and pay in naira, M-Pesa, or MTN MoMo.
“Africa mustn’t wait to be included within the AI wave – we must always construct it,” mentioned Okalobé. “At Yamify, we imagine in community-led AI infrastructure made for Africa and the world.”
Yamify joins a rising wave of African AI infrastructure gamers, together with YC-backed Cerebrium, which has raised $8.5 million for enterprise AI mannequin coaching. Whereas Cerebrium focuses on scalable AI mannequin coaching platforms, Yamify is pioneering a developer-first, community-led method with GPU-powered AI deployments from native information centres, leveraging open requirements like Kubernetes and open-source instruments, mixed with native billing options.
Globally, the corporate is up towards Lambda, CoreWeave, and the hyperscalers — AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Okalobé’s technique is a grassroots go-to-market: embedding in hackathons, developer teams, and universities reasonably than chasing enterprise gross sales.
“We go after individuals who don’t know AWS exists,” Okalobé mentioned. “We assist them launch their first chatbot or automation and develop with them.”
The corporate entered personal beta in July 2025 and has attracted builders, fintechs, and net businesses throughout Lagos, Kinshasa, Brazzaville, and Johannesburg. Over 1,500 builders and startups, together with Vaultpay.io (Y Combinator 2023), are on the waitlist. Yamify’s paid plans begin at $15 a month for people and $500 a yr for businesses, with free tiers for testing.
Okalobé says Yamify’s price benefit comes from his staff’s experience in cloud price optimisation, utilizing open-source infrastructure like Kubernetes, detecting idle workloads, and shutting them down robotically. “Hyperscalers don’t flip issues off for you. We do,” he mentioned.
Yamify’s six-month purpose is to onboard 100,000 customers; the longer-term aspiration is reaching $1 million in annual income and a repute because the default AI infrastructure layer for Africa’s subsequent technology of startups. For Okalobé, although, the final word measure of success isn’t just income. “If builders are telling others, ‘Yamify helped me launch this,’ then we’ve already received.”
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