Paylend, a Kenyan fintech startup focused on providing access to finance and digitizing MSMEs in Kenya, announced it has raised $2 million seed investment. The funding came from Next Chymia Consulting HK Limited, an Asian-based company that provides global entities with blockchain applications, consultancy services, and training. Paylend’s mission is to support MSMEs across Africa to solve access to continuous capital while bridging the consumer data gap by connecting consumers to products and services. Paylend’s model enables consumer data collection that allows for a thorough understanding of consumer needs and
Nigerian mobility tech startup Metro Africa Xpress Inc. (MAX)has secured $31 million in Series B funding. The latest funding round was led by the global private equity platform, Lightrock, making its first investment in the African mobility space. Through their Digital Africa initiative, the UAE-based international venture capital firm Global Ventures also took part in the round, as did existing investors Novastar Ventures and Proparco, the French development finance institution. MAX currently designs and assembles its line of electric motorcycles. The firm says, “beyond solving the mobility challenges in Africa, we
A female-centered private equity fund dubbed Alitheia IDF has raised $100 million to support “gender-diverse businesses” in Africa. The news comes just one year after raising $75 million from investors. This is a massive achievement as women-only founders have received less than 1% of the nearly $5 billion raised by startups across Africa so far this year. This time around, involved in the fundraising was the African Development Bank, Bank of Industry Nigeria, FinDev Canada, Dutch Good Growth Fund, and the European Investment Bank. Closing the round, European Investment Bank (EIB) committed $24.6 million.
Kenyan-based startup Wowzi — created to transform social media users into brand influencers — has secured $3.2 million in its latest seed round. Africa-focused venture capital firm 4DX Ventures led the round. Other investors include To.org, Golden Palm Investments, LoftyInc Capital, Afropreneur Angels, and Future Africa. Andela co-founder Christina Sass and former Andela executives Jessica Chervin and Justin Ziegler. The new funds will spearhead operations in Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa to fulfill its goal to expand beyond their current scope of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The platform is designed to help brands automate
According to government figures, Nigeria has been recording massive growth in its information technology sector, but only one-fifth of IT workers are women. Now aid groups are trying to help women and girls enter the IT world by teaching them about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. And despite the lack of gender diversity on investment boards in the country, the funding gap, or even an unconscious bias that has frequently been reported – many female African tech entrepreneurs continue to impact the industry remarkably. For example, a report by The Women
Two-year-old startup uLesson has just announced that it closed a $15 million Series B round. The startup first launched by providing a product pack of SD cards and dongles with pre-recorded videos for K-12 students. They can either access lessons via streaming or use the SD cards to download and store the content. But uLesson has introduced new features for an all-encompassing edtech play for this demographic. It added quizzes and a homework help feature to connect students with tutors from universities. It also launched a one-to-many live class feature with polls and leaderboards
Bento, a digital payroll and human resource management platform, is expanding to Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda with plans to set up operations in six other markets in Africa over the next year. The startup, founded in 2019, is helping businesses automate the disbursement of salaries and other statutory remittances, including taxes and pensions. Bento said that its platform is leveraging data to extend credit solutions to third parties (employees) and other services like unemployment insurance, savings, and investments. Its proprietary credit engine, built in partnership with Israel’s Tarya, ensures the
TradeDepot, a Nigeria- and U.S.-based company that connects consumer goods brands to thousands of retailers and helps with distribution, has raised $110 million in new equity and debt funding. TradeDepot operates a B2B marketplace that connects small shops, kiosks, and retailers with wholesalers of global consumer brands that have access to food, beverages, and personal care products. The company owns its warehouses and fleets of drivers to carry out the distribution. It now plans to bring in more retail stores and expand its buy, pay later service across the continent.
Equinix has announced its plans to acquire MainOne, a West African data center and connectivity solutions provider in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, for $320 million. Armed with over $200 million in equity and debt investment, MainOne was built as West Africa’s first privately owned, open access undersea high capacity cable submarine. It’s a 7,000-kilometer cable stretching from Portugal to West Africa with landings along Accra in Ghana, Dakar in Senegal, Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, and Lagos in Nigeria. Funke Opeke launched MainOne in 2010 after noticing the poor internet
MarketForce, a Kenyan B2B retail and financial services distribution startup has expanded into five additional markets across Africa to grow RejaReja — its retailer ‘super app’ that allows informal merchants to order and pay for inventory digitally. The startup has partnered with Cellulant, a pan-African payments company that makes it possible for local and international merchants to accept “locally appropriate and alternative” payment methods from their customers to expand into these new markets. Cellulant has partnerships with 46 mobile-money operators in Africa, 120 banks and serves 35 African countries with a physical
