With a rather slow start into Q2, startups in Africa raised about $102m across 8 deals, with 3 of them raising undisclosed amounts. About 89% of that amount however was a debt financing of $91m that Senegalese Wave Mobile Money received from IFC and others (arranged by IFC). This further goes to show the prevalence of debt as an alternative source of fundraising especially for late stage startups across the continent, as earlier noted in our H1 recap. This raise put Senegal in first place, and Kenya in second place driven by Solarpanda’s $8m Series A raise which was funded by Oikocredit and the EU-funded Electrification Financing Initiative.
Across the industry divide, cleantech continues to follow closely behind fintech especially with respect to count of deals; scoring 2 deals, same number as fintechs but with lower amount (Note that one of the cleantech deal’s amount was not disclosed, that is Kenyan cleantech Ofgen who received funding from CFAO Kenya, an affiliate of the Toyota Tsusho Corporation).
In other news from the ecosystem;
● Nigerian fintech startup Mono, an Ingressive Capital portfolio company which provides open banking infrastructure that enables access to customer financial data and bank payments for digital businesses in Africa, has expanded to Kenya as it begins its continent-wide rollout.
● Automotive e-commerce company Autochek has expanded to Francophone Africa after acquiring CoinAfrique, a classified ad marketplace, whose regional customer base will help Autocheck accelerate its car financing services.
● South African fintech startup Nomanini is expanding its supply chain finance solution StockNow to eight new African markets including Nigeria via a strategic partnership with financial services provider Baobab Group.
● Canal+ has acquired Rwanda’s largest content production and distribution outfit Zacu Entertainment to further increase its involvement in the African market, with plans to launch a dedicated drama channel in the Kinyarwanda language shortly.
● Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, has signed a licensing deal with African streaming service Mdundo which will make the music catalog of UMG available to users of Mdundo.
● Endeavor has announced the final closing of Endeavor Catalyst Fund IV, a $292M venture capital fund through which it plans to continue to invest in the companies led by Endeavor Entrepreneurs globally. This represents Endeavor’s largest fund to date, surpassing the fund’s initial $200M-$250M target and brings Endeavor Catalyst’s total AUM up to $500M+.
● Mobile-first blockchain ecosystem, Celo, has launched a new programme called Celo Africa Web3 Fund to support African startups through its VC partners which include Unicorn Growth Capital, Ape Unit, Echo VC, Uncovered Fund and Flori Ventures. It is proposed to enable Web2 founders to adopt a strategy and scale their businesses to achieve deeper financial inclusion, lower transaction costs and more affordable credit.
● The Afri-Plastics Challenge, run by London-based innovation experts Challenge Works, tackling the scourge of plastic pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa and funded by the Government of Canada, has named 10 finalists for the second edition of the challenge.
