Week in Review
🚀 Elon Musk finally launches Starlink in Africa, 🏦 British International Investment and Citigroup bet big on Africa & ⚡️JABU raises to supercharge growth ⚡️
The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.
Funding Rounds 🚀
JABU raises $15m | Marketplace | Namibia - A last-mile distribution e-commerce company, they help small retailers order and stock their products and, at the same time, provide data-driven services to suppliers and manufacturers.
Sylndr raises $12.6m | Marketplace | Egypt - is an automotive-focused e-commerce marketplace, allowing customers to reliably and transparently sell and buy used cars.
Untapped Global raises $10.3m | Fintech | Africa - smart asset financing model, which finances revenue-generating assets for entrepreneurs and SMEs in Africa and Latin America.
FoondaMate raises $2m | EdTech| South Africa - FoondaMate has built a chat-based, AI-powered learning bot that helps students get fast, easy and safe access to study materials and help via open chat platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Essal raises $1.7m | Health Tech | Egypt - B2B2C Health Tech platform which allows users to digitally consult with experts on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, physiotherapy, paediatrics and nutrition.
Doxx raises $1.5m |Health Tech | Egypt - medical record compilation service, bringing together a network of 2,600 doctors, 52 pharmacies and 26 medical labs.
Cloud Fret raises $1m | Saas | Morocco - Cloud Fret is a transport and logistics company that connects truck loaders and carriers.
Blink Pharma raises undisclosed amount | Health Tech | Egypt - B2B marketplace that allows pharmacists, laboratories and wholesalers to exchange orders and make payments.
🔦 Startup Spotlight: JABU
What❓: JABU is a last mile logistics company. With JABU, merchants can order, stock and pay for their products via Jwallet and expect same-day delivery. The company also provides data-driven services such as sales metrics and agent performances to FMCGs brands and banks via dashboards.
Traction📈 : over 6,000 merchants on the platform
Market opportunity 🌍 : small and medium sized kiosk ands shops have traditionally struggled with logistics when ordering for their stores. Data on
Competition⚡️: Musanga, PicUp, Sendr, Max.ng, Parcel-it, Wasoko, TradeDepot, Omnibiz, MarketForce, MaxAB and Chari
Investors: YCombinator, Tiger Global, Box Group, Knollwood, D Global Ventures, Afore Capital, Oldslip and FJ Labs.
🗞 Other News
🚘 Uber announced a significant milestone it has completed 1 billion rides across all its markets in Africa.
🚀Starlink launched into Nigeria and Mozambique. Starlink the satellite internet provider launched by Elon Musk’s Space X finally enters Africa.
British International Investment (BII) and U.S. bank Citigroup Inc have signed a $100 million risk-sharing facility aimed at boosting lending to small businesses across Africa. The deal will help Citi expand its supply-chain lending on the continent, targeting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that usually find it hard to access financing.
🏦 M&A
Dstny buys Tactful AI - Tactful AI’s unified customer experience platform is an AI and data-centric solution that empowers business users to manage, engage, and understand the customer journey across multiple touchpoints. The acquisition will allow Belgium based Dstny to employ AI and data in their customer experience operations.
📢 Tell a friend to tell a friend 📩
The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.