Egyptian e-health and IoT solutions startup Sotech has raised US$1 million in pre-seed funding to scale into the rest of the MENA region. Founded in 2020, Sotech specialises in smart IoT, trackable OOH advertising, and data gathering. The startup bridges the worlds of offline advertising with online campaigning, via an app that helps clinics understand the volume,…
The Global Innovation Initiative Group has announced the creation of a fund to support African innovation. Over the next three years, the vehicle will invest $100 million in African early-stage tech firms. The GIIG Africa Fund aspires for returns of more than 25%. “We are not simply opening a new fund; rather, this is the…
The Global Innovation Initiative Group (GIIG) stands out as an investment vehicle supporting early-stage tech startups by establishing a new fund aimed at investing in early tech innovations startups across Africa. The curaçao-based private investment fund, GIIG Africa Fund, invested annually in winner pools across the Africa region of the Global Startup Awards (GSA) – the world’s…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor Less than 3% of genetic material used in global pharmaceutical research is from Africa. The staggering gap is quite surprising because Africans and people of African descent are reported to be more genetically diverse than any other population. Since launching in 2019, African genomics startup 54gene has been at the forefront of bridging this divide in the global…
Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian startup Releaf, which develops proprietary hardware and software solutions to drive the industrialisation of food processing in Africa, has raised US$4.2 million in seed equity and grant funding to support the development and scaling of technology solutions for the oil palm sector. Agri-tech startup Releaf was founded in 2017, and took part in the…
Written by Manish Singh Truecaller, which operates an eponymous caller-identification service, said on Wednesday it is looking to raise $116 million in an initial public offering on Nasdaq Stockholm. The 12-year-old Stockholm-headquartered firm, which counts India as its biggest market by users, is aiming for a valuation of about $3 billion in the IPO, according to…
Written by TOM JACKSON Egyptian fintech startup Kashat has raised a US$1.75 million bridge funding round to further develop its platform and expand operations. Founded in 2019 by Sumair Farooqui and Karim Nour, Kashat is the first nano lending mobile application in Egypt, offering short-term loans of between EGP200 (US$13) and EGP1,500 (US$95) with a repayment plan…
Written by Ejike Kanife Nigerian-led legal technology startup, Definely has announced a £2.2 million funding round. The funding round was led by Microsoft’s venture fund, M12, and supported by CRE Venture Capital. This funding brings the startup’s total funding to £3.4m following a seed round in September 2020. Founded in 2017 by the Nigerian-born Nnamdi Emelifeonwu who…
The winners of the inaugural US$1.5 million Heifer International AYuTe Africa Challenge were announced today: Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, founder and CEO of ColdHubs, a Nigerian company that provides solar-powered walk-in coolers for smallholder vegetable farmers, and Jehiel Oliver, founder, and CEO of Hello Tractor, a Kenyan company that has become known across Africa as the “Uber…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor Funding startups that help manufacturers and sellers distribute products and merchants access them on a single platform keeps increasing across Africa. Today, Cairo-based B2B e-commerce startup Capiter continues that trend by raising a $33 million Series A round. The investment was co-led by Quona Capital and MSA Capital. Other participating investors include Savola, Shorooq…
Writteb by Joan Aimuengheuwa Implemented by the Tony Elumelu Foundation, the Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (WE4A) programme is set to improve the business capacity of women-led enterprises, increasing scaling changes globally. The programme is organised by a joint effort from the European Union (EU), the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor We like to buy things online ranging from e-commerce stores to subscription-based sites. However, no one enjoys the hassle when you have to always re-log into different sites and stores. I mean, shopping can be a whole lot more fun if a fast logging and checkout system existed across all your favorite online…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor In Nigeria, there are more than 40 million micro-businesses underserved in some form or another regarding banking services. Although some of these businesses have registered bank accounts, gaps exist in how banks use the data available to serve the needs of each business. With banks, presenting a series of transactions as statements is all these…
Written by TOM JACKSON Kenya-based energy leasing company Solarise Africa has secured EUR5 million (US$5.9 million) in debt financing from Swedish impact investment platform Trine to help it sustain its growth across the continent. Founded by Patrik Huber, Jan Albert Valk and Sakkie van Wijk, Solarise Africa is an energy leasing company for solar and other energy…
Written by TOM JACKSON Morocco-based startup Lacaisse, which offers a digital solution for the management of physical points of sale (POS), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding to help it scale. Founded in 2016 by Said Belkhayat and Rim Benboubker, Lacaisse has established a base of more than 250 points of sale in the Casablanca catering…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor Spanish on-demand delivery platform Glovo today announced plans to double its investment in Africa and expand its operations on the continent. The Barcelona-based company has invested up to €25 million ($30 million) by bringing its food delivery service to six African countries — Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria….
Ugandan e-logistics startup Ridelink raises $150k pre-seed funding round Written by TOM JACKSON Ugandan e-logistics startup Ridelink has raised US$150,000 in pre-seed funding to help it scale operations. Launched in 2017, Ridelink is an e-logistics platform that connects SMEs to a network of transport operators at the click of a button. So far it has served over…
What 377 Y Combinator pitches will teach you about startups Written by Natasha Mascarenhas Along with a cadre of other TechCrunch folks, I spent this week extremely focused on one event: Y Combinator. The elite accelerator announced a staggering 377 startups as its Summer 2021 cohort. We covered every single on-the-record startup that presented and…
Founders Factory and G-Force launch Seed program for climate-focused startups Written by Mike Butcher UK tech accelerator Founders Factory is joining forces with a European counterpart to launch the Founders Factory Sustainability Seed program. Launched in partnership with G-Force (the G is for Green) based out of Bratislava, Slovakia, the program will look to invest in and accelerate…
Data Snapshot: Insect ranches, vertical ag among 2020’s top-funded ‘Novel Farming’ startups Written by Lauren Manning & Jack Ellis AFN‘s parent company AgFunder released the latest edition of its annual Farm Tech Investment Report earlier this month, which showed that funding for agritech startups last year saw its biggest annual increase in since 2018. According to the report, Novel Farming…
African energy startups to benefit from SIMA’s $68,000,000 Energy Access Relief Fund Written By Joan Aimuengheuwa With a focus on ensuring adequate decentralisation of clean energy globally, Social Investment Managers and Advisors’ (SIMA) has made its $68,000,000 Energy Access Relief Fund (EARF) accessible to startups in the energy sector. Smaller to mid-sized energy companies across sub-Saharan…
Nigerian tech-enabled spices exporter Agricorp raises $17.5m Series A funding round Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian startup Agricorp, which is utilising technology in a bid to become the largest spices exporter on the continent, has raised US$17.5 million in Series A funding to help it increase its production capacity to 7,000 metric tonnes. Founded in…
Nigerian VC firm LoftyInc announces first close of $10m fund Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian VC firm LoftyInc Capital Management has announced the first close of its US$10 million LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 (LAF3) as it seriously scales up its activity in the startup space across the continent. LoftyInc Capital Management is a venture capital firm…
Nigeria’s Bumpa raises $200k pre-seed to build e-commerce solutions for retail businesses Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian startup Bumpa, which helps retailers manage and grow their businesses from their mobile phones, has closed a US$200,000 pre-seed funding round to help it reach more merchants and add more features. Launched in February by Kelvin Umechukwu and…
Number of African participants in latest Y Combinator accelerator climbs to 15 Written by TOM JACKSON The number of confirmed African participants in the Y Combinator accelerator’s S21 cohort has increased to 15 after two more were named ahead of demo days taking place yesterday (August 31) and today (September 1). Disrupt Africa reported last month…
PawaPay, an African payments company, has raised $9 million in seed funding PawaPay, an African payments business, has raised $9 million in seed funding. MSA and 88mph, a UK-based investment fund, co-led the round, which also included Vunani Capital, Kepple Ventures, and Zagadat Capital. PawaPay, which was founded in 2020, focuses on the mobile money infrastructure…
LoftyInc Capital, a Pan-African Venture Capital firm, has launched its third fund, valued at $10 million, for African tech startups LoftyInc Capital, a pan-African venture capital firm, announced today the launch of its third fund, LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3, with a $10 million investment target for African tech startups. The firm has completed its first…
Rwandan e-health startup Viebeg raises pre-seed funding to further scale Written by TOM JACKSON Rwandan startup Viebeg, which provides high-quality medical supplies and equipment throughout Central and East Africa through an innovative data-driven procurement platform, has raised a pre-seed round funding to help it scale. Founded in 2018 by chief executive officer (CEO) Tobias Reiter…
APPLY: $24,000 for grab at Seedstars Digital Democracy Hackathon The hackathon is for socially committed innovators, writes Joan Aimuengheuwa Leveraging technology and entrepreneurship to further its mission of impacting the lives of people in emerging markets, Swiss-based group, Seedstars, has launched the application for its hackathon. Themed “Digital Democracy Challenge”, the programme seeks innovative, low-cost, and viable…
Zoom announces first startups receiving funding from $100M investment fund Written by Ron Miller For more than a year now, Zoom has been on a mission to transform from an application into a platform. To that end it made three announcements last year: Zoom Apps development tools, the Zoom Apps marketplace and a $100 million development fund to invest in some of…