Week in Review
🇬🇭 Ghana launches $800m development Bank, 💰MFS Africa completes $200m series C round, Jumia ventues into Q-Commerce 🛵
The Week in Review is designed to inform curious minds interested in the latest activity in the African innovation ecosystem.
Funding Rounds 🚀
MFS Africa raises $100m | Fintech| Nigeria - MFS Africa is a digital payment company that offers mobile financial solutions for senders, money users, and service providers.
CrossBoundary raises $25M | Solar | Kenya - a mini-grid infrastructure investor.
Jumba raises $1m | B2B | Kenya - a tech startup working to rationalise the construction supply chain in Africa.
Khazenly raises $2.5m | logistics | Egypt - a one-stop-shop solution for the full spectrum of fulfilment services, from warehousing, to cross-docking, transportation, delivery, and cash collection services.
Jodop raises $1 million | Future of Work | Morocco - Jodop deploys AI technologies to match temporary workers to prospective employers.
Boyot has raised undisclosed funding | Fintech | Egypt - startup that offers an end-to-end operating system for payments and financial services focusing exclusively on the real estate market
Vetwork raises undisclosed funding | PetTech| Egypt - Vetwork is a one-stop shop for pet care products and services
🔦 Startup Spotlight: MFS Africa
What❓: MFS Africa is the largest mobile money inter-operability hub in Africa, which connects mobile network operators across the continent through a single API.
Traction📈 : company connects more than 320 million mobile money wallets across 35+ African countries and 700 corridors. It also covers a broad range of financial services around bank accounts, prepaid cards and virtual debit cards. Along its journey to becoming an key player in the African payment space, the company has made some key acquisitions:
Global Technology Partners (GTP) - GTP is the number one processor for prepaid cards in Africa, with over 80 banks – including UBA, Ecobank, BIA, Stanbic, Coris, NSIA and Zenith Bank – using its platform. GTP’s client base covers 34 countries and is fully connected to the Visa, Mastercard, GIM, GIMAC and Verve networks for which it provides the processing.
Capricorn Digital Limited (Baxi) - Baxi is one of Nigeria’s largest independent SME-focused electronic payment networks, with over 90,000 agents. It provides a cash-in/cash-out offering as well as value-added services (account opening, money transfer, bill payment and more) to the last mile.
Beyonic - a digital payments services provider for enterprises which operates in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda.
Sochitel (Later sold to Idt International Telecom Inc) - Sochitel enables international airtime top-up services through a variety of channels and partners. Sochitel delivers airtime top-ups to over 320 mobile network operators in 100 countries.
Market opportunity 🌍 : mobile payment in Africa is already a $456bn market with 469 million user accounts in 2019. In sub-Saharan Africa, specifically, over 60% of the adult population has a mobile money account. The market is still fragmented and there is lots of opportunity for players to provide value add to the consumer
Investors: Admaius Capital Partners, Vitruvian Partners, AXA IM Alts, AfricInvest FIVE, CommerzVentures, LUN Partners Group, Goodwell Investments, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest, Equator Capital Partners, Ulme B.V., and Vlemeij B.V.
News
Ghana launches development bank to boost access to capital to the countries SME’s. The Development Bank Ghana which starts with $800M in capital, plans to grow 5 fold in the next five years. The fund aims to lend to financial institutions who will then plug the gap of a shortage of funding to small and medium sized enterprises.
Launch Africa closest first fund - Launch Africa the Pan-African venture fund last week announce the closing of its first $36.3m fund. It typically backs seed and pre-Series A startups and cuts an average check size between $250,000 to $300,000.
Gozem secures $10m from IFC to finance 6,000 vehicles in Togo and Benin - Gozem, which provides a suite of mobility, e-commerce, and financial services to drivers, retailers, and other consumers, announced on Friday that it has partnered with the International Financial Commission (IFC) into Gozem’s vehicle financing project.
Jumia, the once shining light of African tech announced its venture into Q-Commerce as it grapples with its path to profitability.
M&A
EFG Hermes' Tanmeyah acquires B2B marketplace Fatura- Tanmeyah for Microfinance Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EFG Hermes Holding and Egypt’s leading provider of microfinance solutions acquired Fatura a fast-growing tech-driven Business-to-Business (B2B) platform with a regional footprint of 22 governorates 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.