TECHCRUNCH has announced PressOne, a technology startup that provides entrepreneurs with professional business numbers and 199 others globally, for the maiden Startup Battlefield 200.

With a few weeks to TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, PressOne Africa and three other African startups made the shortlist of 200 to be eventual trimmed to 20 that would eventually vie for the $100,000 winning prize and the Disrupt Cup.

The programme, which holds from October 18 to 21 in San Francisco, United States, would witness future unicorns, emerging technologies and genuinely valuable connections from all across the tech ecosystem.

CEO of PressOne Africa, Mayowa Okegbenle, said the “focus for us is to help entrepreneurs across Africa build world-class businesses. And I believe it starts with giving them a proper phone number for business. Whether big or micro, we believe every business should enjoy the benefits of a proper business number.”

Before now, most entrepreneurs and small business owners used their SIM card numbers for business. This is because getting a professional business number, used by big companies, is not accessible to everyday entrepreneurs. The challenges faced by entrepreneurs, who use SIM card number for business, are burdensome but subtle. They can’t monitor calls made by staff, they can’t get a professional welcome greeting to impress customers and they can’t have more than one person receive calls on the number. Even more challenging, is that such numbers can temporarily get lost, once the phone is stolen or lost.”

He added: “However, a PressOne business number solves all these challenges and more. PressOne Africa is changing the status quo. Regardless of the business size, business owners can now acquire a proper business number for their business. Their PressOne numbers can be shared with team members. They can impress customers with professional welcome greetings. They can set official business hours for phone calls, listen to calls made by staff and improve customer service.”

Others that joined the contest are: AltSchool Africa (Rwanda), Oze (Ghana) and Shekel

(Nigeria).

In the past, the TechCrunchDisrupt stage hosted the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and many other startup stars before redefining the world via technology. (The Guardian)