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- This [or Last..?] Week in African Tech 🌍
Welcome to Tech Safari!
Your tour guide on African Tech 🧭
Hello to the 301 new folks who have joined the Safari since the last edition.
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Morning! Welcome to This Week in African Tech (or should it be Last Week..? 🤷🏾)
Anyway - a few things before we dive in.
Techstars Lagos is hosting a meet and greet event in Nairobi this Friday!
You’ll get to meet the Techstars team and other founders in Nairobi.
There will also be a panel with a few great local founders, moderated by yours truly.
After the panel, we’ll have a fun social mixer 🥂 RSVP to come along here.
And second: A big opportunity for startups with our partners at Raise and our friends at Launch Africa.
Lets check it out 👇️
Today’s edition is brought to you by… Raise
Founders in Africa! Are you raising money? I've teamed up with Raise to give you a little gift 🎁
Introducing: The 7-Step Guide to Closing.
If you’re a startup looking to raise or you’re just curious about what goes into raising some funding, this guide is for you.
We’ll dig into:
🎙️ How to leverage social proof and testimonials
🛣️ How to communicate your milestones and progress
💯 How to flex your numbers and systems in a way that ‘woos’ investors.
And it gets better.
Next week, I’m hosting a live pitch-deck review session with some of the continent's best investors.
Like:
Janade Du Plessis, Managing Partner at Launch Africa, which has invested into over 130 startups across the continent
Lisa Illingworth - Commercial Director at Raise, which manages $2.5 billion in equity across 430 startups.
Caleb Maru (yours truly) - Founder at Tech Safari and active investor in early-stage startups across the continent.
Want the guide, plus an invite to the Pitching 101 Workshop? Sign up below to get both.
Tech Roundup
Elon Musk’s Starlink finally goes live in Kenya. The internet service uses Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to deliver broadband internet.
While Starlink wants to ‘connect the unconnected’ in Africa, I don’t think it will move the needle 📌 More on that here.
Bundle Africa, an app for buying and selling crypto, is closing down its exchange services after three years of operation. The company will now focus on its peer-to-peer platform, Cashlink.
Uganda introduces a digital service tax to international companies that provide services like online advertising, data services, and online marketplaces. Uganda is following Nigeria and Kenya’s lead, and the tax will have the biggest impact on tech giants like Netflix and Meta.
Deal Roundup
Lagos-based insurtech startup MyCover.ai just raised a $1.25 million pre-seed funding round led by Ventures Platform and featuring Founders Factory and Techstars Toronto.
Kasha Global, Rwanda's digital retail platform for pharmaceuticals and FMCGs, with a focus on women's healthcare, has raised $21 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Knife Capital, setting the 7-year-old startup on an expansion across Africa.
Egyptian cashless payments app Flash has raised a US$6 million seed round, led by Addition, the venture capital firm headed by former Tiger Global executive Lee Fixel.
Menthum, the Egyptian digital savings startup, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round. This investment will be used to grow its team and enhance its infrastructure.
Events + Opportunities
Techstars Lagos is hosting a meet and greet event in Nairobi this Friday! I’ll be there moderating a panel with founders and after the panel, we’ll have a fun social mixer 🥂 RSVP to come along here.
Women Who Build Africa (WWBA) is hosting the first annual WWBA Assembly in Nairobi on September 13th-14th. And they’re calling for women founders, investors, and ecosystem partners to join. Learn more and express Interest here.
Microsoft has teamed up with Flapmax for the FAST startup accelerator. If you're looking to expand Africa's digital ecosystem, this is your chance. Applications are open here.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is introducing its inaugural Global Fintech Accelerator which will help fintech founders with mentorship and support to build with Artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Founders Factory Africa has launched its Gen F Entrepreneur in Residence Studio. Gen F gives budding founders money and access to experts to test and launch their ideas over 12 weeks. Ready to build? Learn more here.
PS - do you have any news, announcements, or opportunities I should know about? Email me and if they’re a fit, I’ll feature them 👌🏾
And that's a wrap for this week! We will be back with a feature story later this week.
Did we miss anything? Or just want to say hey? I'd love to hear from you! You can
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What did you think of today's edition? |
Catch you soon!
👋🏾 Caleb