During the week in review being the second week of July, startups in Africa raised a total of about $13.5m across 7 deals. A pre Series-A deal raised by South African proptech company DigsConnect was undisclosed which is expected to have been a significant amount. Of the $13.5m raised however, about 74% want to Persistent Energy Capital, Africa’s Climate Venture builder, who raised a $10 million Series C funding round led by Kyuden International Corporation, a Japanese Kyushu Electric Power Group subsidiary, and Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa Investments.
Out of Nigeria, Zazuu, a fintech company raised a $2m seed round to expand their platform for sending money across the border; while Stakefair, DeFi startup that provides a platform where users can earn interest on digital currencies when betting on a sporting event, raised a $670,000 pre-seed with which they plan to expand their services to include a business-2-business API service. Also, Swipe, a fintech that empowers businesses and individuals by enabling seamless credit transactions, raised $500,000 in a pre-seed round.
In other news from the ecosystem;
● Nigeria’s full-service fintech and banking as a service infrastructure provider, Bloc, has announced its acquisition of Getwallets, the wallets-as-a-service provider that recently pivoted to a payments orchestration company, Orchestrate; in a combined cash and equities deal.
● Tunisia-based Smart Capital, the manager of the Anava fund of funds, has invested $5.2 million in the Badia Impact Squared Fund (BIF2), a newly-launched fund targeting regional early-stage, high-growth startups. BIF2 is managed by Silicon Badia, a global early-stage venture capital firm.
● Applications are now open for the latest edition of Yunus Environment Hub (YEH)’s GrowUp incubation programme, which seeks social business solutions for sustainable tourism and mobility in East Africa.
● African Leadership Group (ALG) has acquired US based coding school, Holberton. The seven-year-old company, with physical schools across the globe in addition to its core online platform, will split in two. Holberton’s technology platform will become part of ALG’s existing ALX online learning platform and the existing 34 physical locations will get spun out to become a stand-alone business under current Holberton COO Florian Buche.
● Errand360, a bicycle delivery company, has entered into a strategic partnership with Jumia Food in Nigeria to offer last-mile logistics services to the company’s customers. This partnership will allow for meal deliveries via the Jumia Food app to be seamlessly delivered to customers through Errand360’s fleet of bicycles and hundreds of drivers.
● Catalyst Fund, managed by BFA Global, has secured a US$3.5 million investment from specialist development agency FSD Africa to anchor its presence in Africa, and scale its work as a leading accelerator and pre-seed impact fund for emerging market entrepreneurs.
