Step. Sweat. Repeat.
Amafit is turning Africa’s dancefloors into fitness data goldmines
Hi there,
Welcome to the 7th edition of Next Capital, where we help you find Africa’s most promising startups—before anyone else does.
Last week, we wrote about the startup fixing finance’s worst headache. If you missed it, you can catch up here.
One night in Nairobi, Hakim Luyima’s roommate, David, returned from Nairobi Street Kitchen and checked his phone.
15 kilometres. All from dancing.
That was the spark of a question and his next venture.
Why is dancing—Africa’s most joyful, social, and widespread thing—not being tracked as fitness?
Enter Amafit: a dance-powered fitness app that turns your dance moves into measurable steps, calories, and competition points.
It’s like Strava, for people who prefer nightclubs to marathons.
Backdrop
Africa’s music culture is exploding.
Across the world, local sounds like Afrobeats and Amapiano are going global.
And so is our dance culture.
There are over 6300 nightclubs in Africa, with over 50 people attending every night.
That’s an average of 630,000 hours of dance happening on the continent if everyone at these clubs danced for 2 hours.
At the same time, most fitness tracking apps and leaderboards don’t count these dance steps as walk time or distance.
So, when Hakim’s roommate unknowingly crushed his step goal in the club, a bulb flipped on in his head.
His app - called Amafit - is a meld of two words; “Amapiano” and “Fitness”.
Amafit’s Solution
Another dancing app? (Sorry, TikTok)
Amafit is a mobile app that lets users:
Start a dance session
Track steps, calories, and dance intensity
Earn points in a gamified leaderboard
Compete in real-time during parties or workouts
The product is still in beta, but already has:
Background tracking (you don’t need to keep the app open)
A leaderboard feature for events
A points system to gamify the dance-fitness loop
And they’re just warming up.
What’s Working
They already have power users
From Uganda to Nairobi, users are organizing office-wide Amafit parties. Others are dancing with it at 2 a.m. in clubs. The most active group? People who already use YouTube dance workouts and want to level up their tracking and social motivation.
They’re using dance as distribution
Amafit has hosted live activations in Nairobi, Kampala, and Johannesburg. These aren’t just fun events—they’re user acquisition loops.The product is rooted in fun
Unlike most workout apps that feel like a chore, Amafit wraps exercise in joy. It doesn’t look like fitness. It feels like a party. But it still burns calories, tracks steps, and sparks community competition.Global potential
Africa’s music and dance culture is going global, and Amafit could grow with it too.
The Vision
The roadmap dances between product, growth, and scale:
Add deep dance tracking to recognize the nuances of different dance styles (salsa, amapiano, zumba, etc) & motion detection prompts (“Are you dancing now?”)
Launch community features (like Strava clubs, but for dance crews)
Partner with gyms, offices, and co-working spaces for dance-based wellness programs
Host Streaming Saturdays—live dance events with global users tracking together
Expand into festival partnerships (imagine tracking motion data at AfroNation)
Explore wearables integrations to reduce mobile phone dependency.
Their user goal: 5,000 active users in the next 18 months
Why we’re excited
Amafit is still in beta, and it has…
📱 150+ beta users
💃 30–40 daily active users
🎉 3 live activations (Kampala x2, Nairobi x1)
📊 Events planned in Joburg & Nairobi + ARIMC conference
🪩 Top users include partygoers, YouTube dancers, and office wellness teams
🚀 Accepted into ALX incubator
🧠 Built-in gamification + real-time leaderboards
🎯 Target: 5,000 users in the next 18 months
Why we’re watching Amafit
Amafit is turning everyday behaviour into a measurable health tool.
Like Strava did for runners. Like Apple did for steps. Like Peloton did for bikes.
Amafit is doing for dance—and it’s starting in Africa.
In homes, weddings, clubs, and conference afterparties.
Team
Hakim Luyima: 2x founder. Ex AirQo(Google funded), Leta, and Kreate. Leading design and product.
Mabel Akena: Over 7 years of clinical practice and research experience as a physician.
David Bakka: Experience leading East Africa’s most popular record labels and organising amapiano festivals across the region. Ex Swangz Avenue.
Hassan Mutebi: Over 4 years building software and AI products.
If you’d like to meet the team or would love a more detailed investment memo, shoot me a reply.
If you’re betting on culture, fitness, or the future of Africa’s creator economy—
Hit reply and let’s talk.
And if you’re building something cool we should know about, fill out this form
Till next week! 👋
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Sounds fun. I would love to read their investment memo.