Week In Review
Nigerian Fintech bosses Jailed 👮🏿♂️, Dollar Cards Halted in Africa 📉, Wave raises $90m amidst staff cuts🏦
The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.
Funding Rounds 🚀
Wave raises €90 million | Fintech | Sengal - Senegal-based mobile money provider.
Duhqa raises $2m | Retail | Kenya - a B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods in FMCG, cold chain and pharmaceuticals.
Zazuu raises $2m | Fintech | Nigeria - U.K.-based and Africa-focused fintech offering customers various remittance options.
Swipe raises $500k | Fintech | Nigeria - credit-focused tech company powering businesses in Africa by providing credit solutions to enable business growth and expansion through credit purchases.
Aza Petrosolutions raises $296,000 | Logistics | Tunisia - Aza develops tech-based solutions tailored to the oil distribution industry.
Ghana’s SolarTaxi raises undisclosed funding | Mobility | Ghana - e-mobility company that designs, locally assembles, and distributes electric two-wheel (e-2Ws) and four-wheel (e-4Ws) vehicles for transportation and delivery services.
Paymee raises undisclosed funding | Fintech | Tunisia - Paymee offers online payment acceptance solutions to online merchants.
DigsConnect raises undisclosed funding | Housing | South Africa - digital student accommodation platform.
Stllr Network raises undisclosed funding | AdTech | Egypt - Stllr provides companies with a plug-and-play marketing model through experimenting with different campaigns like SEO, media buying, social media and more.
🔦 Startup Spotlight: Wave
What❓: Senegal-based mobile money provider.
Traction📈 : processed over $500 billion through 300 million active mobile money users in the region.
Market opportunity 🌍 :
Access to digital financial services remains limited in the West Africa, region with only 24% active mobile money accounts compared to 34% in East Africa.
Only 43% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa were “banked” by way of a traditional bank or mobile money account.
High mobile phone penetration in West Africa
Competition⚡️: Telcos, Opay, Paga, Zepz (World Remit), ChipperCash
Investors: Sequoia Heritage, Founders Fund; Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Partech Africa and Sam Altman.
News
African fintechs halt virtual dollar cards after Union54 chargeback fraud surge - Union 54 a Zambian card issuer which raised raised $12 million in a seed extension round led by Tiger Global this year halted its dollar card issue services amidst a rise in chargeback fraud. This affected fintechs across the continent including Barter by Flutterwave, Eversend, Busha, GetEquity and Payday.
Fintech bosses jailed in the US - Ping Express a remittance firm based in Texas, dmitted in US district court filings that it broke money laundering rules after it transferred $167 million out of the US without notifying authotiries. Ping Express CEO Anslem Oshionebo, 45, and COO Opeyemi Ode, 43, both recently received 27-month prison sentences, and the company’s business manager, Aleoghena Okhumale, received a 42-month prison sentence for intentionally transferring criminal proceeds.
Wave cuts 15% of its staff - Wave, an African fintech that offers mobile money services in Senegal and Ivory Coast, laid off about 15% of its workforce last month.
Funds
SA VC Futuregrowth launches new high growth development fund - South African venture capital fund Futuregrowth has announced its intention to launch its Futuregrowth High Growth Development Equity Fund (HGDEF), targeting investments in early-stage businesses that will have a strong developmental impact.
Catalyst fund raises $3.5m - Global inclusive tech accelerator 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.
Smart Capital invests in Badia Impact Squared Fund - Smart Capital, the manager of the Anava fund of funds, has committed $5,2 million to the Badia Impact Squared Fund (BIF2), a venture capital fund managed by Silicon Badia, a pioneering venture capital firm that invests in early-stage and growth-stage technology firms operating globally
M&A
Autochek acquires CoinAfrique - Nigeria-based auto-tech company Autochek has announced the acquisition of CoinAfrique, the leading platform for classified adverts in French-speaking Africa, to accelerate penetration of its auto-financing services into Francophone Africa.
Bloc acquires payments company Orchestrate - Nigerian full-service fintech and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure provider Bloc has announced its acquisition of Getwallets, the wallets-as-a-service provider that has now recently pivoted to become payments orchestration company Orchestrate.