Andela’s Unicorn Status, M-Pesa is Africa’s Largest Fintech & Digital Air Pollution in Kenya | The Round-up

12 Oct

We are officially in the final three months of the year. As usual, we have another news roundup for you. We explore Andela’s unicorn status, M-Pesa’s popular status, and Flutterwave’s partnership with MTN, amongst others. Here’s the roundup.

Andela is Africa’s Latest Unicorn
Yes, you read that right. We have yet another unicorn in Africa - this time it's the almighty Andela. Andela paved the way for talent startups in Africa and has been successful with training both junior and senior developers over the last 7 years. Andela helps tech companies build remote engineering teams. Last year, the company changed their business model from training junior developers, to instead focusing on senior developers in Africa, training and distributing them to job roles at global tech companies.

It’s safe to say that this pivot, alongside their recent $200m Series E fundraise led by Softbank’s Vision Fund 2, with the participation of Whale Rock, Generation Investment Management and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, helped them to reach unicorn status quickly. The company is now valued at values $1.5 billion. The company is looking to focus on mergers & acquisitions, with more emphasis on building products for engineers and companies.

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

Africa’s leading payments technology company, Flutterwave, recently announced a mobile money partnership with Africa’s largest telecommunications provider, MTN Group. This partnership will allow businesses integrating Flutterwave in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia to receive payments via MTN Mobile Money (MoMo).
Nigerian based company Agricorp International, has raised $17.5 million in pre-series A funding. AgriCorp produces, processes, and exports spices. With this new raise in funding, Agricorp will increase its spices processing capacity up to 7000 metric tonnes, expand into new markets, hire more talent, and build more processes that enhance global food systems.
Kenya’s M-PESA has become Africa’s largest fintech with 50 million active users, making it the most popular mobile money platform on the continent. The mobile money platform which is owned by Safaricom, is mostly used by Kenyans, but has also been exported to other countries such as Tanzania, Mozambique, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt.
Ugandan e-logistics platform, Ridelink has raised a pre-seed investment of $150k to build its e-logistics technology for East Africa and double-down on its marketing efforts, bringing the company’s total investment to $250k. The investment was birthed from the startup’s partnership with Ortus Africa Capital, Omidyar Network and African Leadership Academy’s Young Entrepreneurs Fund (Anzisha).
In Kenya, digital billboards around Nairobi began to live-stream the city’s real-time air pollution in an effort to increase air quality awareness among the city’s 4.7 million inhabitants. The initiative by the UN Environment Programme, in collaboration with IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company, Safaricom, a telecommunications provider in Kenya, and others, provides real-time air quality information for some of the most harmful types of air pollution. The pilot project aims to engage the public by streaming real-time air pollution information to digital billboards at 4 critical locations in the city.
In Sierra Leone, MIT plans to test 3D printing and mobile delivery of prostheses. Researchers at a new bionics centre established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) plan to pilot a mobile imaging and delivery system of prosthetic limb services for disabled Sierra Leoneans. The project – meant to ensure patients in medically underserved communities have access to prostheses – is listed as one of the four priorities for the research centre set up with $24 million in funding from philanthropist Lisa Yang.
Nigerian automotive tech company, Autochek acquires Cheki Kenya and Uganda from ROAM Africa. With the acquisition, Autochek makes its expansion into East Africa and follows the first acquisition made almost a year ago when it acquired both Nigeria and Ghana businesses from Cheki.
Kenyan retail giant, Naivas partners with e-commerce company, Jumia, to deliver food to Nairobians. The retail giant is banking on its wide variety of products and affordable price offering and its large customer base, to make the online venture successful.
Ethiopia makes plans to become Africa’s clean energy hub. The East African country is on course to become a net exporter of energy as it unveiled a $40bn roadmap to build 71 power projects over the next ten years. Of those projects, 16 are hydro-power, 24 wind, 17 steam, and 14 are solar, making the model arguably one of the world’s biggest policy shifts towards clean energy and potentially building Ethiopia into a leader in clean energy in Africa. At the same time, Ethiopia will bolster its electricity generating capacity from the current 4,200 MW to around 35,000 MW by 2037.
Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission has set up a fintech division to study crypto investments and products in order to create regulations, and help investors protect their investment in blockchain.
African genomics company, 54gene, have secured $25M in a Series B round led by Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund. This round also included participation from Adjuvant Capital, KdT Ventures, Plexo Capital, Endeavor Capital, Ingressive Capital and several others. The newly-raised capital will be deployed to expand 54gene’s capabilities in sequencing, target identification and validation, clinical trials and drug discovery for the benefit of both Africans and the global population. The funding will also aid 54gene’s expansion across the African continent, as they advance precision medicine by creating access to accurate diagnostics for African patients. The recent fundraise brings the company’s total funding to more than $45M since being founded in 2019.
Nigerian Agtech start-up Releaf, which develops proprietary hardware and software solutions making African farmers and food factories more efficient and profitable, raised $4.2M in seed funding and grants. The round was led by Samurai Incubate Africa, Future Africa and Consonance Investment Managers with participation from Stephen Pagliuca, Chairman of Bain Capital and Justin Kan (Twitch). The company also secured $1.5 million in grants from The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) and USAID. The new funding will support the development and scaling of technology solutions for Nigeria’s oil palm sector.
In Ivory Coast, Jumo, MANSA Bank and MTN are joining forces to launch a mobile money loan offering to improve SME credit access and boost financial inclusion in West Africa. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to resolve the problems of limited capital access to entrepreneurs in the informal sector. The fund seeks to help SMEs, currently contributing an average of 60% of the GDP of West African countries, with less than 15% having access to banks as a source of finance.
In Togo, the Chinese government plans to distribute digital satellite television and reception kits in 200 villages. The project aligns with a separate plan by the West African country to switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting. It will cover more than a third of villages in the country, which is one of the smallest by land area and population in Africa with approximately 8 million people. The government’s plan was expected to kick off with the construction of nine digital transmission sites. However, it has stalled as DTT coverage in the French-speaking country remains low, and non-existent in rural areas.
Nigerian mobility startup Moove, which provides revenue-based vehicle financing to help individuals across Africa own their own vehicles, has expanded to Cape Town and is gearing up for further pan-African growth. The expansion marks the fourth city in which Moove has launched within only 15 months of operations, building on existing operations in Johannesburg, Lagos and Accra.
In Kenya, Netflix has launched a free, first-of-its-kind Android plan, that will allow users to watch a limited selection of its catalog, including full seasons of select shows, hoping to convert them to paid subscribers eventually.