Startups in Africa raised a total of at least $19.3m across 6 deals. Over 60% of the amount raised went to Cartona; Egypt-based B2B e-commerce platform who closed $12 million in a Series A round led by Silicon Badia, with the participation of the SANAD Fund for MSME, Arab Bank Accelerator and Sunny Side Ventures, alongside existing investors, Global Ventures and Kepple Ventures.
Founded in 2019, Cartona is digitizing the traditional trade market in Egypt including mom-and-pop stores, FMCG producers, wholesalers, and distributors. They provide retailers and suppliers with an integrated solution boosting financial inclusion enabling them to run and grow their business more efficiently, and reach end-consumers with essential products at affordable prices. The investment will be used to enhance Cartona’s expansion plans across Egypt, cover all governorates, grow its product, technology, and services, and explore new verticals beyond FMCG.
Another interesting raise is Ubenwa Health, a Canada and Nigeria based healthtech, who is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to detect the cause of an infant’s cry. “We’re trying to bring the world to a point where infant cries are considered to be a vital sign just as much as we would consider their heart rate to be a vital sign,” the founder, Charles Onu, told TechCrunch. They have so far raised $2.5m in a pre-seed round led by Radical Ventures with participation from AIX Ventures, Yoshua Bengio, Google Brain’s Hugo Larochelle and Marc Bellemare.
In other news from the ecosystem;
● The Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB) passed the third reading at the House of Representatives, exactly a week after the bill was passed by the Senate. The bill has now completed its round at the National Assembly and all that’s left for the bill to become law is the president’s assent. The most critical objective of the bill is bridging the engagement gap between startups and regulators to ensure that regulations that are harmful to Nigeria’s tech ecosystem are shut down.
● Umba, a U.S.-based digital bank with a focus on emerging markets, has acquired a majority share of Daraja, a Kenyan deposit-taking microfinance bank, for an undisclosed amount. Umba acquired 66.6% shareholding, and this is expected to fast-track Daraja’s digitization.
● The Creative Dock Group (CDG), Europe’s leading corporate venture builder, has acquired FoundersLane and has created the largest independent corporate venture builder in the world. They also launched FoundersLane Egypt to manage the company’s operations in Egypt. The firm plans to invest over €100m in the region over the next five years.
● Max has announced a partnership with Yamaha’s Nigerian subsidiary, Moto Business Service Nigeria (MBSN), to finance and maintain over 50,000 vehicles over the next 2 years. The partnership will expand Max’s operations in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon and fast-track its goal of serving 100,000 independent commercial drivers by the end of 2023.
● Seedstars, with a goal of investing in 100 more startups (in addition to its current 81 portfolio companies) has launched its second emerging market seed-stage fund, called Seedstars International Ventures II (SIV), with a first close of $20 million. The fund is expected to total $30 million, and its limited partners include the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Visa Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and Symbiotics.
● The United Nations Population Fund and AfriLabs have launched an incubation programme to suppor ideas tackling female genital mutilation (FGM) and climate change. Following successful training at the UNFPA Climate and FGM HackLab virtual bootcamps, six innovators were selected to participate in the UNFPA Incubation Programme. The selected finalists are from Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and 2 from Uganda.
● Paratus Namibia has announced Namibia’s first-of-its-kind carrier-neutral data center in Windhoek. Armada, as the data center is called, is expected to open its door in August and will enable any client hosting within the facility to choose which telecommunications provider they wish to purchase services from.
