South African insurtech platform Naked has raised $11 million in a Naspers-led round. Existing investors, Yellowwoods and Hollard, also participated in the funding round. This comes barely two weeks after Naspers, via its early-stage tech investment vehicle Naspers Foundry, invested in another South African insurtech platform Ctrl in its $2.3 million Series B round. Naked’s […]
Dubai-based buy now, pay later platform tabby raises $50M at $300M valuation
These past few years have seen the emergence of buy now, pay later services worldwide, with leading players raising buttloads of cash to serve an insatiable young adult population who don’t fancy credit cards or paying interest. In what seems to be a consolidation of some sorts, fintech juggernaut Square acquired Australian buy now, pay […]
Kenya’s Wapi Pay raises $2.2M pre-seed for cross-border payments between Africa and Asia
According to the World Bank, it is more expensive to send money to sub-Saharan African than to any region in the world. It is also the most expensive region to send money from. In Q1 2020, people spent an average of 8.9% to send money to the region, much higher than the global average of […]
South Africa’s Khula closes $1.3M seed to scale its software-for-agriculture platform
The myriad challenges faced by smallholder farmers in Africa — inadequate financing, education and input distribution — persist and greatly affect the agricultural output on the continent.
Airtel Africa gets an extra $200M for its mobile money business from QIA
Three months ago, Mastercard invested $100 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV (AMC BV) — the mobile money business of telecom Airtel Africa. This was two weeks after it also received $200 million from TPG’s Rise Fund. Today, the African telecoms operator has announced that it has secured another investment for its mobile money arm. […]
Egyptian ride-sharing company Swvl plans to go public in a $1.5B SPAC merger
Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, the women-led SPAC in charge of the deal, called Swvl ‘a disruptive platform that solves complex challenges and empowers underserved populations.’
Field Intelligence targets 11 African cities to expand its pharmacy inventory-management service
The company’s Shelf Life project aims to remedy the inventory-management issues in Africa’s retail pharmacies.
Ivorian fintech Julaya raises $2M to digitize business payments in Francophone Africa
Julaya enables companies to streamline their accounting and improve their operational efficiency by digitizing payments to workers and suppliers instead of relying on cash.
South African payments startup Yoco raises $83M Series C backed by Dragoneer
Despite South Africa’s high card and mobile penetration rates of over 70%, the country’s SMEs still struggle to accept cards. Yoco’s portable card machines proved masterful in solving this problem.
One of Nigeria’s high profile angel investors is launching a fund for African startups
Olumide Soyombo is one of the well-known active angel investors in Nigeria tech startups and Africa at large. Since he began angel investing in 2014, Soyombo has invested in 33 startups, including Stripe-owned Paystack, PiggyVest, and TeamApt. Today, the investor is announcing the launch of Voltron Capital, a Pan-African venture capital firm he co-founded with […]