Innovating the lifeblood of the African economy | The Round-up

8 Dec

*Moove founders Jide Odunsi and Ladi Delano*

It has been a fantastic year for the African tech sector, from mega deals to mergers and acquisitions, and more unicorns. We are looking forward to 2022 being filled with record-breaking announcements for the African tech sector.

As always, we are here to deliver your monthly dose of African tech news. This month, we explore Moove’s partnership with Lori systems, Bolt’s electric vehicles in South Africa, Spotify’s new ad service in Africa, and more. Here is the roundup.

‘Mooving’ into the ‘Lori’ business

African mobility fintech, Moove has entered into a partnership with African e-logistics firm, Lori systems, to facilitate the accessibility and affordability of vehicle financing within Africa’s trucking and logistics industry and further drive the penetration of truck financing services which is currently below 1%.

Truck drivers are the lifeblood of the African economy as they are constantly moving essential and non-essential goods across several countries, putting their lives at risk on African roads. It’s only fair that they work with companies like Lori systems who make their life easier by using technology to make the process of matching goods to customers more seamless.

The partnership with Moove and Lori will create innovative and flexible financing options, using Lori’s existing data, allowing transporters to fund new trucks, increase their fleet and grow businesses. It will unlock access to financing to provide an even more efficient service and match the growing customer demand in the market, whilst lowering the cost of goods.

Here is a roundup of other news stories from the African startup scene in November:

Nigerian fintech startup, Payhippo, raised US$3-million in seed funding to extend quick loans to SMEs across Nigeria. The funding will be used to improve and grow the tech startup’s technological capabilities and facilities to support small businesses in Nigeria.
African cross-border payments company, Chipper Cash raised US$150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. The investment comes barely six months after the company closed its first Series C round of US$100 million, led by SVB Capital, which officially brought them unicorn status.
One of the world's most popular ride-hailing service providers, Didi, is finally launching in Africa, in a move that would allow them to rival other market leaders like Bolt and Uber. Reports state that the Chinese major is ready to enter Nigeria, having started operations in South Africa in March and Egypt in September 2021.
In South Africa, Bolt is set to roll out electric taxi options only four months after introducing e-bike food delivery services in the country. Bolt’s plan follows the introduction of a ‘green category’ — which lets riders hail an electric or a hybrid vehicle. This comes as the company expands its services to environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Y Combinator-backed Nigerian fintech, Lemonade Finance raised a US$725,000 pre-seed funding round to help it scale. The company which allows Africans abroad to send and receive money from their home countries in efficient, affordable, and fast ways, uses its mobile application to allow its customers to hold their balances in the currencies that matter to them, easily converting one to the other.
Spotify has launched its self-serve ad platform, Ad Studio, in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana to allow artists and brands to run audio and video ads easily. In Nigeria alone, over 100 million citizens are active internet users, 57.9 per cent of these use music apps. The median age in this market is 18, meaning that the majority of smartphone users are Gen-Z. Similar to Ghana and Kenya, the Gen-Z market is increasing, and many young people are streaming audio.
Kenyan HR company, Workpay, has announced its expansion into Nigeria. The Nairobi-based company which provides over 400 businesses with tools for managing their HR, payroll, compliance, and benefits, has said that Nigeria will act as the company’s hub for the West Africa region. Workpay is a graduate of Y Combinator and Google for Startups Africa and recently was selected among other 50 companies in Africa to receive equity-free funding and support from Google’s Black Founders Fund Africa.
Ghanaian electric vehicles company, Solar Taxi, has hinted that beginning from next year the company will start assembling electric cars in Ghana. The company already assembles electric motorbikes and tricycles in Ghana, which are patronised heavily by delivery service companies. This comes at a time when the Ghanaian government, through the energy ministry, is leading the charge to ensure that is ready to welcome electric vehicles into the transportation system.
Kenyan edtech startup, Craydel, which helps students and working professionals in Africa discover, compare, and apply to higher education, has raised $1 million in a pre-seed round led by Enza Capital, a private venture fund that invests in early-stage tech startups across Africa. With the new funding, Craydel plans to embark on a new path to build its search and recommendation engine for more spot-on suggestions, as well as build resources that will help students and professionals in the decision-making.
Nigerian money transfer startup, Aboki Africa, has raised pre-seed funding to expand and grow its workforce and scale its products. The round was led by Abdul Hassan, and also included Niche Capital, Ingressive Capital, and other strategic investors. Aboki Africa allows users to open a virtual global bank account for free to receive and make foreign payments or convert currencies, all in one place.
Rwandan electric motorcycle startup, Ampersand, has secured a US$9m debt facility from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to expand its operations in Rwanda and Kenya. The deal represents DFC’s first loan for electric mobility and signifies increasing investor confidence in Africa’s rising e-mobility sector.
Kenyan agritech startup, Twiga, has raised a US$50M Series C round to expand food and retail distribution across Africa. Since 2014, the startup has been using technology to build more efficient supply chains in food and retail distribution in Kenya. With the new funding, the company hopes to expand this mission across Africa.
African payments company, Flutterwave, has acquired Disha, a platform that enables digital creators to curate, sell digital content, portfolios and receive payments from their audience worldwide. Flutterwave’s acquisition aims to improve the process of digital content creation for Disha users, enabling them to earn value for their creativity using the platform’s new payouts and collections solution.
Nigeria’s health tech startup, Helium Health, has announced its acquisition of Qatar’s doctor booking platform, Meddy, in an undisclosed deal. With this acquisition, Meddy's CEO Haris Aghadi and COO Abed Alkarim Khattab will join the Helium Health leadership to enable the execution of its expansion into the Gulf region — Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates.
UNICEF and African e-commerce platform Jumia have announced a partnership in support of Giga’s work to connect every school to the internet and every young person to information, opportunity, and choice. Jumia’s data science capacity will offer Giga insights into the economic benefits of increased connectivity, helping to make the case for increased public and private investment in Africa.