Lelapa AI — Research & Product Lab

Africa-centric AI research and product lab (Johannesburg); CEO Pelonomi Moiloa; co-founders include Jade Abbott & Vukosi Marivate. Develops Vulavula multilingual NLP API for African languages; raised $2.5 M (Mozilla, Atlantica, Jeff Dean/Google); only dedicated African-language AI product lab; reverses brain drain by retaining top African researchers; globally cited.

Key Achievement: Raised $2.5M from Mozilla Ventures, Atlantica Ventures and Google's Jeff Dean. Founded by six African AI leaders. Vulavula currently supports isiZulu and other South African languages.