This Week in African Tech 🌍 Zumi shuts down and a fintech gets acquired

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Happy Saturday!

The more I dug into M-Pesa's origin and growth story the more I wanted to share about it. You could say I was in an M-Pesa rabbit-hole this week.

This week I wrote about:

• How Safaricom stumbled on the fintech equivalent of penicillin 

• M-Pesa's secret growth strategy to reach 52.4 million users

• How M-Pesa brought 2% of Kenyan households out of poverty

I have one more for you before I come out of the M-Pesa rabbit-hole.

This is one of the earliest ads for M-Pesa (if the animations didn't give it away).

It's a nice look at how M-Pesa actually works if you haven't used it before - and the song slaps too. Enjoy!

And ICYMI last week we announced our WhatsApp Community, Safari Club! To join our growing community of 50 members 🚀 refer your friends.

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Let's get to it.

Today's edition is brought to you by.. Yazi

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Tech Roundup

• Zumi, the Kenyan B2B e-commerce marketplace, is shutting down after failing to raise funding, letting go of 150 employees. The CEO and co-founder announced the news on LinkedIn.

• Meta has been temporarily barred by a Kenyan court from engaging a new content moderation company, Majorel. This comes after 43 content moderators filed a petition alleging 'unlawful termination' against Majorel. Sama, Meta’s content moderation partner, has also been barred from firing its employees.

• Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), after previously raising funds in stealth mode, has now launched its $43m pan-African venture fund. The fund will invest in startups addressing the continent’s pressing challenges and have already generated revenue. Congrats to our friends at Kepple!

• Factor[e] Ventures launched a new venture studio, Delta40, that will invest $100-$600k into African start-ups in energy, agriculture and mobility, and will work with startups to increase their speed of venture building.

• 54gene, a Nigerian genetic company based in Washington, laid off about 25% of their already lean workforce, leaving less than 30 employees at the firm.

Deal Roundup

• Rwazi, an informal market insights platform, received $4 million seed funding from Bonfire Ventures, Newfund Capital and Alumni Ventures. The funding will be used for planned product launches and further expansion.

• Fin, a south African credit-led neobank, has acquired Thuthukani, a housing finance provider. They will be renamed Fin Home Loans and will give middle-lower-income Fin customers access to affordable finance.

• Almentor, an Egyptian ed-tech offering the leading online video learning platform in Arabic, has raised a $10m pre-Series C funding. The funding is expected to accelerate its goal to serving 10m learners in the MENA region.

• TIBU Health, a Kenyan an omnichannel tech company offering health services, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding. This round was led by Health54, the healthcare arm of CFAO Group.

Events and Opportunities

• Are you running a start up that has a social positive impact on Africa and the Middle East? Applications for the 13th Orange Social Venture prize are now open, with the top prize being $27000. Must be from one of 17 select countries. Deadline on May 21.

• Early stage fintech companies! The first edition of the AWS FinTech Africa Accelerator is open for applications. Amazon is offering training for CEOs and CTOs (without taking equity). Application will close on April 27.

• The Africa VC Summit, is a conference for Africa-focused LPs and fund mangers and is on June 9th in Austin, Texas. Hosted by our friends at Ajim Capital, the summit is an excellent opportunity to network with leading investors and LPs. Early bird tickets available until the end of the month.

And that's a wrap! We will be back with a feature story next week.

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Catch you soon!

👋🏾 Caleb