This Week in African Tech 🌍

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Your tour guide on African Tech 🧭

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Happy Sunday! Hope you’ve had a great weekend.

I spent this morning planning our next Tech Safari event in Nairobi, Kenya. Info coming soon. In the meantime, you can RSVP here.

Alright, into This Week in African Tech!

Tech Roundup

• Nigerian fintech PayDay is looking to sell, six months after raising $3 million. They’re in talks with potential buyers and hope to close a deal soon. Payday allows African remote workers to receive various currencies and offers virtual dollar and naira cards, currency swaps, payment links, bill payments, and peer-to-peer transfers.

• Kenya's consumer credit startup Lipa Later, gets approval to raise funds from the general public in the US. Lipa Later intends to raise on Republic, a global fintech that allows anyone to invest in early startups.

• Bob van Dijk resigns as the CEO and board member of Dutch-listed tech investment company Prosus and its South African parent firm, Naspers. Bob, who served as CEO for nine years, has now been replaced by Ervin Tu, who will serve as interim CEO.

• Elon Musk’s Starlink applies for an operating license in Zimbabwe. If granted, Zimbabwe will become one of the African countries connected to Starlink’s internet, joining Nigeria, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Mauritius.

• ESKOM, South Africa’s electric power distributor, predicts that power outages (load shedding), will only get worse in 2024. This year alone, load shedding could cost South Africa $13 billion.

• Telecom giant Safaricom is partnering with Apple Inc. to connect MPESA with PayPal, to expand MPESA's global reach. President William Ruto made the announcement during a US-African Business roundtable. While MPESA already connects to PayPal, the details of this new partnership are still unclear.

Deal Roundup

• Zambian neobank Lupiya has raised $8.25 million in Series A funding led by Alitheia IDF Fund. They want to make financial services accessible to more Zambians and expand across Southern and Eastern Africa.

• Nigerian automotive startup Fixit45 has raised $1.9 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Launch Africa Ventures and big investors like Soumobroto Ganguly and Dave Delucia.

• Kenyan insure-tech company Turaco has acquired MicroEnsure Ghana, a micro-insurance broker serving low-income customers. This move welcomes Turaco into West Africa, making Ghana its fourth market.

• Egyptian home and décor e-commerce ariika has raised an undisclosed Series A round from Beltone Venture Capital. This gives Beltone a 20% stake in the company.

• Ivory Coast's e-commerce platform, ANKA, has raised $5 million, building on the $6.2 million pre-series A funding they got last year. ANKA is an online shop for African artists, helping them sell clothes, jewelry, and accessories while simplifying sales, shipping, and payment processing

• Ghanaian agritech startup, Complete Farmer, has raised $10.4 million in a pre-Series A round. The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and Alitheia Capital co-led the equity portion of the round.

• South Africa’s e-commerce startup, Live Copper, which specializes in building fixtures, has raised an undisclosed amount from Moa Holdings. This gives Moa a 20% state in Live Copper.

• Untapped Global, a revenue-based asset financing platform, has raised a $3 million Seed Round led by E3 Capital, to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart solutions like e-mobility across the continent.

Events + Opportunities

• Founders! Join us next week to learn how to build a global startup! I'm teaming up with Tola Onayemi of Norebase and a very special guest: Adewale Yusuf, who will share his experience starting global companies Techpoint Africa, AltSchool, and TalentQL(Techstars '21). RSVP Here.

• Interested in African startups? Mark your calendar for Adaverse's demo day on September 29th. It's an online event for Adaverse’s startups to showcase their progress to investors, market players, and media. RSVP here.

• Building a startup in South Africa? Applications open for the 2nd Irish Tech Challenge South Africa. Five founders will access strategic networks in Ireland, Europe, and South Africa, receiving up to EUR10,000 (US$11,000) each in funding. Apply here

• Verified.africa has launched an accelerator program! Participants get up to $5,000 in free usage credits to verifying customers' identities, and get access to industry mentorship and to connect with other founders. Check it out here.

And that's a wrap for this week!

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