App for Egyptian fitness Welnes has closed a seed funding round of $300,000 to expand its team and prepare for GCC expansion by 2023. Welnes, which was founded in 2020 by Amr Saleh and Amr Diab, is a community app that assists users in achieving their weight-loss and lifestyle goals by providing them with customized…
Thrive Agric ThriveAgric, an agriculture investment platform, has announced a $56.4 million debt financing from local commercial banks and institutional investors. According to a company statement, the funding includes a $1.75 million co-investment grant from the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment. This latest round of funding comes on top of the $9 million raised…
Microsoft has announced that it has invested approximately $200 million (two hundred million dollars) in the establishment of its Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Lagos, Nigeria. During Microsoft’s Nigeria Office Launch in Lagos, Gafar Lawal, managing director of its ADC in Nigeria, revealed this. Since establishing the Africa Development Centre in Nigeria three years ago,…
Lucky, an Egyptian startup that provides credit products, offers, and cashback rewards, has raised a US$25 million Series A funding round to expand its credit capabilities, increase market share, and drive further international growth. Lucky, founded in 2018 by Momtaz Moussa and Ayman Essawy, provides users with access to an expanding range of simple credit…
Rwandan online legal marketplace Hence Technologies has raised $1.8 million in seed funding. This brings the company’s total cash raised to $2.6 million. Daybreak Partners, Broad Creek Capital (founded by two former lawyers, Matthew Ruesch and Michael W. Green), Daglar Cizmeci, and a number of other angel investors took part in the round. Hence Technologies,…
Chargel, a Senegalese logistics startup, has raised a pre-seed funding round of $750,000 to help it make the trucking industry in Senegal and Francophone West Africa more efficient, reliable, and transparent. Chargel, co-founded by Moustapha and Alioune Ndoye, brings trucking’s offline operations online by matching shippers with the right transporters at the right price, as…
The news media landscape has shifted dramatically over the last few decades. Searching for news online has become commonplace, whether through Google, social networking sites, major newspapers, or local media websites. Because smartphones are so widely used, people can get the most up-to-date information from all over the world in real time. While digital media…
Sokowatch, a Kenyan e-commerce company that uses technology to improve the informal retail supply chain, has raised $125 million in Series B funding, rebranded as Wasoko, and expanded into West Africa. Tiger Global, the world’s largest venture capital firm, and Avenir Growth Capital are leading the round, which also includes VNV Global, Flipkart co-founder Binny…
Shatablee, an Egyptian digital interior design and home renovation startup, has raised US$1.2 million in funding to accelerate its national expansion. Shatablee, founded in 2021 by Mostafa Amer, provides a 3D technology-powered digital platform through which users can build and customize home designs in less than 30 minutes and have the entire renovation completed in…
Spleet, a Nigerian real estate technology startup, has raised US$625,000 in pre-seed funding to help it launch a new product that provides tenants with affordable loans to help them pay their rent. Spleet, founded in 2018 by Tola Adesanmi in response to the need to find rentals in Lagos with flexible payment options rather than…
Moove, one of the fastest-growing mobility fintechs, has raised $105 million in a new Series A2 funding round led by previous investors Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, and the latest ventures, as well as new participants AfricInvest, MUFG Innovation Partners, Latitude, and Kreos Capital. The company said in a statement to Technext that the funds will…
Wattnow, a Tunisian startup that provides IoT smart energy management solutions, has raised a pre-Series A funding round of US$1.3 million to help it expand across Africa and the Middle East. Wattnow, founded in 2018 by Issam Smaali, assists businesses in gaining control of their energy usage through the use of plug-and-play hardware and software…
Following the completion of all Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) requirements and the receipt of a US$2.2 million pre-seed funding round, Egyptian fintech and next-generation banking startup Nexta is set to begin operations. Nexta, founded in 2021 by Ibrahim Farag and Ahmed Hisham, is a digital bank that aims to improve Egyptians’ daily lives by…
Klump, a Lagos-based buy now pay later (BNPL) startup, has raised a pre-seed funding round of $780,000 to help it launch its flagship “Pay with Klump” product with select partners, offering BNPL solutions to customers and businesses. Klump, founded in 2021 by Celestine Omin and Olufunbi Falayi, who have combined experience building products with Konga,…
Yep!, a Nigerian financial super app, has raised US$1.5 million in pre-seed funding as it prepares to launch its solution in five African countries. Yep!, founded last year by Olaoluwa Awojoodu, Airende Ojeomogha, and Garry Ottosen, is a financial super app focused on leveraging technology to deliver seamless financial services and solutions to Africans. Yep!…
Chefaa, an Egyptian e-health startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding to help it expand its network, launch a new product, and enter new markets. Chefaa, founded in 2017 by Rasha Rady and Doaa Aref, is an e-pharmacy platform that offers a complete healthcare experience. The startup provides users with compliant, ethical, and patient-centric…
Antler, an early-stage investor, has closed its oversubscribed East Africa investment fund at a cost of US$13.5 million in order to continue supporting early-stage tech startups in the region. Antler is the world’s most active early-stage investor, having invested in hundreds of technology startups and thousands of entrepreneurs across six continents. To date, the company…
Dash, a Ghana-based unified payments software company, announced that it has raised $32.8 million in an oversubscribed seed round to aid in the interoperability of digital payment networks across Africa. The round was led by New York-based Insight Venture Partners. Other investors in the round included ASK Capital, Techstars, Guillaume Pousaz’s Zinal Growth Partners, Jitendra…
OkHi, a smart-addressing startup, has announced a $1.5 million seed extension round following a $1.5 million seed round in 2020. Following the completion of this seed round, the startup intends to focus on onboarding more institutions in order to reach its goal of having one million verified addresses in its database by 2022. Founders Factory…
Naqla, an Egyptian trucking logistics startup, has raised a pre-Series A funding round of $10.5 million in order to expand further in 2022. Naqla, founded in 2017 by Sherif Taher and Samer Sallam, is an app-based trucking technology marketplace that connects truck owners with cargo companies. By automating orders between shippers and drivers, the startup…
Rocket Health, a telemedicine and last-mile healthcare provider based in Uganda, has closed a $5 million Series A funding round to accelerate its technology roadmap and geographical expansion into Uganda and Kenya. Rocket Health, which was founded in 2012, is Uganda’s leading telemedicine provider, providing an end-to-end healthcare experience to over 25,000 individual patients. The…
Kouncel, an Egyptian legal ed-tech startup, has raised US$1.2 million in pre-seed funding to help it grow. The fundraising round was attended by Zaldi Capital, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Academy for Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT), and the Egyptian entrepreneurship development initiative Tanmia wa Tatweer. The funds will be used to expand the…
Stitch, a South African API finance business, announced in January that it would conduct a “startup showcase” to allow early-stage fintech from across the continent to share their solutions with local and global investors and receive support, according to Disrupt Africa. The event was part of a Stitch-hosted meetup for global fintech investors interested in…
Over the course of a record-breaking 2021, total funding in the African digital startup ecosystem trebled, passing the US$2 billion – and even the US$1 billion – threshold for the first time. In 2021, 564 businesses raised a total of US$2,148,517,500, according to the seventh edition of Disrupt Africa’s annual African Tech Startups Funding Report,…
Susu, a global health-tech business dedicated to making healthcare accessible and affordable to all Africans, has raised €2 million in a pre-seed round. Angel investors, grant financing from BPI France, the French government’s public investment bank, and debt were used to raise the funds. Bola Bardet, Laurent Leconte (Chief Technology Officer), and Sandrine Egron (Chief…
VALR.com, a South African cryptocurrency exchange, said today that it has raised $50 million (about R750 million) in Africa’s largest-ever cryptocurrency fundraising round. The company is now worth $240 million. Pantera Capital led VALR’s oversubscribed Series B equity funding round, which included Alameda Research, Cadenza, CMT Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, GSR, Third Prime, Avon…
Milezmore, an Egyptian startup that offers cloud fulfillment, last mile delivery, and customisable operations solutions, has received $5 million in pre-seed funding from social commerce platform Brimore. Milezmore, which was founded a year ago, aims to help merchants capitalize on high growth potential by providing supercharged cloud logistics solutions. It offers a comprehensive range of…
VALR, a South African cryptocurrency exchange, has raised a US$50 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at US$240 million. The proceeds will be used to expand across the continent. VALR, which debuted in 2019, is a digital asset platform that allows customers to buy, sell, store, and transfer Bitcoin and 60 other cryptocurrencies…
FreshSource, an Egyptian startup that claims to be reinventing the agricultural supply chain, has closed a seven-figure US dollar seed funding round as it seeks to become the region’s largest fresh food distributor. FreshSource, founded in 2019 by Farah and Omar Emara, is a B2B agri-supply chain platform that uses technology to transform the way…
PerchPeek, a relocation platform, has raised $11 million in Series A funding to address this employee relocation issue – and make it easier for companies to grant employee relocation requests. Stage 2 Capital and AlbionVC co-led the funding round. PerchPeek claims to have a step-by-step app that assists employees relocating to 47 countries worldwide –…