Week in Review
🇬🇭 Google AI lab launches in Accra , 🏦 Fido banks lands $30m in funding & Kenya's Kune Food ceases operations📉
The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.
Funding Rounds 🚀
Fido raises $30m | FinTech | Ghana - Micro credit fintech enables loans to consumers via mobile phone. Using AI models, Fido gives mobile loans up to $250 to individuals and small businesses. The loans are repayable through single or multiple instalments for a period of up to six months.
Zenysis raises $13.3M | Data | South Africa - Big data startup focussing on improving how developing countries respond to humanitarian emergencies and help them improve public health.
mTek raises $3m | InsureTech | Kenya - digital platform that provides an entirely paperless ecosystem for the insurance industry.
Thepeer raises $2.1M | FinTech | Nigeria - African tech infrastructure startup connecting businesses’ wallets.
Synapse Analytics raises $2 million | Data | Egypt - Synapse aims to build trust between AI and businesses trying to adopt machine learning in their operations through its machine learning operations automation platform, Konan.
Kibo School raises $2M | Edtech | Pan Africa - Kibo is an online school that is set to offer several STEM degree programs targeted at students in Africa.
HealthTracka raises $1.5m | HealthTech | Nigeria - API infrastructure for tele-health service providers, hospitals, and pharmacies, empowering them to provide at-home blood testing for their patients.
Jobop raises $1m | Recruitment | Morocco - On-demand temporary staffing platform.
🔦 Startup Spotlight: Fido
What❓: Micro credit fintech enables loans to consumers via mobile phone. Using AI models, Fido gives mobile loans up to $250 to individuals and small businesses. The loans are repayable through single or multiple instalments for a period of up to six months.
Traction📈 : has so far underwritten 1.5 million loans, valued at $150 million, to 340,000 customers in Ghana.
Competition: Aella Credit, Branch Loans, FairMoney, KiaKia, Paylater, Carbon
Market opportunity 🌍 : Increase in mobile phone usage as a means of managing banking + lack of access to capital from traditional financial institutions to businesses and individuals
Investors: Fortissimo Capital, Yard Ventures
News
Kenyan based Kune Foods shuts down due to running out of funds. - Kune, a Kenyan food tech startup that delivered ready-to-eat meals at affordable prices ran out of cash and had to cease operations. In a statement posted to his LinkedIn page, founder Robin Reecht cited a stifled economy and inflated food prices as circumstances that contributed to Kune’s closure.
Kora expands into the United Kingdom. Kora, a Nigerian payment infrastructure startup headquartered in Canada, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with the municipal government of Birmingham to launch its fully operational UK office.
Tech giant Google announced its launch of a new AI Research office in Accra. Three years since Google first established its presence in Ghana with its first AI research lab, the new office will support the growth of its AI research team.
Disruptech raises undisclosed funding - Egypt-based Disruptech, a fintech- is a venture-capital fund dedicated to developing Egypt’s fintech ecosystem by supporting start-ups and is nurturing a growing number of companies in adjacent sectors that are accelerating financial inclusion. It announced it has secured funding from Madagascar-based AXIAN Group.
M&A
MNT-Halan has acquired B2B e-commerce platform Talabeyah - MNT-Halan provides digital solutions, including lending, buy now pay later, e-commerce, payments, and mobility and on-demand logistics. Talabeyah was founded in 2020 to disrupt and digitize the informal FMCG market in Egypt.
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The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.