This Week in African Tech 🌍

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Happy Sunday!

Tech Safari is back in Nairobi with another mixer happening on the 11th of July, hosted alongside AWS, CloudPlexo, and Infobip.

Tickets are selling fast, and you can save yourself a spot here.

Let’s get into This Week in African Tech!

Tech Roundup

• Copia Global has abandoned efforts to revive its business, choosing to get liquidated and sold for parts, so its creditors can be paid. The company will sell all its assets to pay the creditors.

• Zoho, the Indian rival of Google Suite, will bump up its price for Nigerian users starting in August, because of currency devaluation problems. The naira fell from ₦350 to $1 to about ₦1500 in less than two years.

• Telecom Egypt has teamed up with Hungary’s 4iG Group, an IT solutions provider, to build a $600 million modern fibre network to provide high-speed internet to six million Egyptian households.

• Colombia-based fintech, Minka, plans to expand to Africa. It has chosen East and Southern Africa as the target markets, focusing on Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Burundi and Mozambique.

• South African retail giant, Shoprite, is making its first-ever move into the eCommerce space. It's introducing online shopping for small businesses in South Africa through Cash & Carry, its wholesaler arm.

• Mano, an Angolan grocery delivery startup with a presence in Nigeria, will launch its food delivery service in two major cities - Lagos and Abuja. The startup allows customers to track their food and delivers within a 10km radius of partner restaurants.

• After 11 years of stalling, the Gabonese government has finally launched electronic ID cards for its citizens. The government and the World Bank recently signed a loan agreement to improve access to legal identity.

• News broke this week that Mara, the Nigerian crypto startup no longer exists after losing $16 million last year and running out of money. The startup had splurged on salaries and perks, with the CEO earning around $1.3 million annually. The founder has registered a new entity called Jara in its place.

• Tunisia’s Ministry of Communication Technologies has opened the floor for telco companies to bid for licenses to launch a 5G network. The bids will be made public and interested operators must turn in bids before the 2nd of September.

• Uganda has hiked the import duty on electric vehicles from zero to 25% after the number of EVs imported jumped from 26 to 420 in one year. EV companies must also hire 80% of locals and source their raw materials locally.

Deal Roundup

• Nigerian health-tech startup, Blueroomcare, has raised a pre-seed round to improve access to mental health services for young Africans. The funds will be used to enhance the platform’s capabilities, introduce new features, and expand to new markets like South Africa.

  

  Blueroomcare founders — Moses Aiyenuro and Ebunoluwa Collins. Source: TechPoint Africa

• South African agritech startup, Pumpkin, has secured investment from Renew Capital to help improve access to credit for African farmers and agribusinesses. The startup evaluates the creditworthiness of African agricultural SMEs and links them with interested lenders.

• Nigerian identity verification startup, Prembly, has merged with its Kenyan doppelganger, Peleza, to become Prembly Group. Peleza conducts background checks on individuals and SMEs; the merger will consolidate their operations.

• Kenyan agritech startup, Farm to Feed, has raised an undisclosed sum in equity funding from CityBlue Hotels, one of Africa’s fastest-growing hotel chains. Farm to Feed reduces food waste and boosts farmer income by purchasing imperfect surplus crops, with new funding aimed at enhancing Kenya's food sustainability.

• Egyptian ed-tech startup, ElKheta, has raised $400,000 in seed funding from EdVentures, the Middle East’s first EdTech-focused VC. ElKheta offers online supplementary lessons to support Egyptian school students in their studies.

• Ugandan fintech, Level Africa, has acquired Utilis Ventures, one of Uganda’s leading investment advisory firms. The point of the acquisition is to leverage its expertise and local insights, enhancing services for Africa-focused investors.

• Baobab Network, one of Africa’s leading early-stage investors, has acquired Reflector Marketing, a branding and marketing agency based in South Africa. The Reflector team will join Baobab, allowing them to offer in-house portfolio support to companies funded by Baobab.

• Spark+ General Partner has announced the second and third closing of its Spark+ Africa Fund with $64 million under management. Spark+ is the first impact debt fund focused on growing the clean cooking sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• African startup funding is down 56% against H1 2023, according to data released by Africa: The Big Deal, a funding database for the African tech ecosystem. The data signified a biting winter for African startups trailing the slow action in the VC space globally.

Events and Opportunities

• Don’t miss Tech Safari’s next mixer in Nairobi happening on the 11th of July. It will be hosted alongside AWS, Infobip and CloudPlexo and will be an evening of fun and networking for founders, investors, and the tech curious. Get your tickets here.

• Servercore is hosting its second developer meetup themed “Saving on Cloud Costs” in Nairobi on the 18th of July. If you’re a developer, founder, or tech enthusiast, sign up for the event here to book your spot. The location will be shared upon registration.

• The second Women Who Build Africa (WWBA) Assembly will take place in Nairobi, on the 5th-6th of September, with the full conference day on the 6th. The event is hosted in partnership with Delta40 and the African Fintech Summit. If you’re a startup who’d love to participate in a workshop day, applications are open here.

And that's a wrap for this week!

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