Black-owned finance company Novae LLC has officially launched a new digital tool to help small businesses find grants and tax incentives to help them grow at a faster rate. What is Novae Grants? The new tool launched by Novae LLC, called Novae Grants, allows thousands of users to search through a database filled with finance assistance opportunities from both the private sector and the government. According to the Novae team, the grants in the database range from $500 to $5 million. They have specifically been designed to help underrepresented Black
Serena Williams is making big moves in the venture capital world. After announcing earlier this year, that she would be stepping away from tennis, Williams has embodied the phrase ‘put your money where your mouth is, by investing over $100 million in early-stage startups. Ugandan-based fintech, Numida, is the latest business to benefit from investment from Serena Ventures. The fintech recently raised $12.3M in a pre-series A funding round led by Serena Ventures. Participation included the Pan-African VC fund, Launch Africa, Breega, Soma Capital, Y Combinator, and MFS Africa. What is
Funding for African startups has hit a new record between January and June. According to reports, the African market is the first to see more than a single digit of growth which was extremely unpredictable considering the slowdown globally. Venture capital deals within the African region reached a striking $3.5 billion in six months, with no other continent coming marginally as close to Africa’s startup funding growth. Of the 300 companies that benefitted from this funding, 27% were led by female founders or had at least one female founder. This is
Byld Ventures, a $15 million fund launched this May, has eyes for startups mainly across Egypt and Nigeria due to the partners’ experiences in those markets. Byld Ventures reached its first close almost in June and a second close at $10 million last month. It expects to achieve its final close by year’s end, according to TechCrunch. Over a dozen athletes have backed the fund as well as the Dubai government and several unnamed institutional LPs. The early-stage fund — which has made four investments: Ceviant, Apata, Thepeer and Anchor — consists of four
Lagos-based fintech, Duplo, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding. The seed funding round, led by Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator, will help Duplo launch new products and expand its business into new sectors in Nigeria. The fintech platform, founded by Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa in September 2021, has become one of Nigeria’s top fintech platforms, helping African organizations seamlessly collect payments from their clients and partners. In February, the startup managed to raise $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by pan-African VC firm
Y Combinator’s summer (S22) batch is notably different to its previous ones. Firstly, this batch kicked off with an in-person event – the first since the winter 2020 batch. Secondly, the summer cohort includes 240 companies, significantly fewer than the 414 companies in the winter 2022 cohort. And third, only eight startups in Africa got into the accelerator this summer compared to 24 from the previous batch, representing a 60% reduction. While the region represented about 6% of the entire winter batch, it’s 3% for this batch. When YC went
Founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, Pezesha is a Kenyan digital lending infrastructure that allows both traditional and non-traditional financial institutions to offer working capital to micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Now, the startup has secured an $11 million pre-Series A equity-debt round led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II with participation from Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund and Cardano blockchain builder Input Output Global (IOG). The round also included a $5 million debt from Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds. Access to finance remains a key growth constraint
Kuda, a digital bank based in Nigeria and the U.K., has confirmed via email to media that it has laid off less than 5% of its 450-strong workforce, equivalent to about 23 people. There have been other startups, especially those that have raised vast sums of venture capital within the last year or two, that have laid off hundreds of staff; for instance, Swvl laid off 400 people; Wave, approximately 300; 54gene, 95; and Vezeeta, 50. The layoffs come a year after Kuda, which provides zero to minimal fees on cards, account maintenance and transfers,
US-based fintech startup Deposits raised $5M in seed funding to develop its platform. The funding round led by ATX Venture Partners also included Cabal Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others. The Dallas-based finance startup, co-founded by Joseph Akintolatyo and Daniel Paramo, is a cloud-based fintech platform that helps credit unions, community banks, insurers, retailers, and brands seamlessly implement digital banking tools onto their platforms. The program also allows companies to put together a package of financial features, including mobile apps, debit and credit accounts, virtual cards, peer-to-peer payments, and lending. Akintolatyo and Paramo launched Deposits
Nigeria-based fintech startup, Anchor has received over $1M in investment to help expand its workforce and services. The startup fund program is backed by fund program, Y Combinator, and other venture capital firms, including Byld Ventures, Luno Expeditions, Niche Capital, Mountain Peak Capital, and angel investors such as the founder of SeamlessHR, Emmanuel Okeleji. Co-founded in 2021 by Segun Adeyemi, Olamide Sobowale, and Gbekeloluwa Olufotebi, the banking-as-a-service platform, allows consumers to embed accounts, cards, payments, lending, and other financial features to their products within minutes. “We’re now seeing a new development where businesses want to
