African Fintech Unicorn Moniepoint Secures Investment from Visa, SA Insurtech Naked Raises $38M, 500 Global Launches MENA Tech Fund, and More
Africa Fintech Summit
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Making the News!
African VC Oui Capital Turned $150K Investment to $8M Return with Moniepoint’s Unicorn Exit
5-year-old African VC?Oui Capital?celebrated the success of its investment into the burgeoning African fintech space via the African fintech unicorn?Moniepoint. When it launched its first fund, Oui Capital invested $150,000 in the Nigeria-based company, an early bet that has since generated an $8 million return — enough to pay back the fund.?It underscores how lucrative some early-stage bets, especially in fintech, can be on the continent,?as reported by Techcrunch.?
VC firm 500 Global launches Saudi-based fund for MENA region
Venture capital firm 500 Global, which led a large delegation of portfolio startups to AFTSNairobi24 last September,?is launching 500 MENA, a fund focused on investing in tech startups across the Middle East and North Africa. The fund, managed by executives based in Riyadh, is backed by two Public Investment Fund units and Saudi Venture Capital.?
Abu Dhabi's crypto mining firm Phoenix Group enters Africa with power purchase deal
Abu Dhabi-listed crypto mining and blockchain conglomerate Phoenix Group has struck an 80-megawatt (MW) power purchase agreement (PPA) in Ethiopia as it pursues a global diversification strategy by entering the Africa market, reported Reuters.?Under the deal, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) will provide the energy needed to support Phoenix's bitcoin mining expansion, with supplies due to start in the second quarter. This is in line with trends outlined at the?AFTS Editorial - The history & Future of Bitcoin in Africa last December.?
Visualization of the Week
According to the report by Partech, in 2024, Africa’s VC market was nearly flat. With a total of US$3.2B in equity and debt funding raised across 534 deals, the ecosystem registered a 7% decrease in total funding and a nearly unchanged deal count (-2%) compared to 2023. These numbers show stabilization after a steep drop in 2023 (-46% in funding, and -28% in activity). While the sector is not yet back on a growth trajectory, the African tech ecosystem is doing relatively well compared to other global market trends. See the snapshot in this week's visualization, courtesy of Partech!?
M&A Activities??
Egyptian Fintech Raseedi Acquires Counterpart Kashat?
Egyptian fintech startup Raseedi has acquired counterpart Kashat in an equity deal to broaden its product offerings and introduce instant loans.?
Banking & Telcom Activity
Best in the world: Ghana claims top spot in new GSMA mobile money regulatory ranking
Ghana has emerged as the leading country in the world when it comes to countries with regulatory frameworks that enable widespread mobile money adoption, as compiled in?the 2024 Mobile Money Regulatory Index (MMRI) by the GSMA, which is a global organization unifying the mobile ecosystem.?
YC-backed Waza launches Lync, an alternative to Mercury for African startups after $8m raise
Waza, a YCombinator-backed B2B payments company, has launched Lync, a banking product designed to help businesses manage multi-currency accounts and make international payments. This move comes after Mercury, a San Francisco-based fintech, restricted accounts for startups in 13 African countries in July 2024 following internal compliance changes.?
Startup Activity
U.K. - Zepz, the group powering global remittance brands WorldRemit and Sendwave, has announced that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has closed its $20 million equity investment in the company. This investment is part of Zepz’s recently announced $267 million Series F funding round led by Accel, with participation from Leapfrog and TCV.
South Africa -?South Africa’s Naked raises $38M in Series B2 to deepen its investment in automation and AI.?The newly secured funding will enable Naked to deepen its investment in automation and AI, expand its product offerings and market reach, and enhance advertising efforts to grow its customer base.?
Nigeria?- SeamlessHR,?Nigerian startup?that helps businesses manage HR functions, has raised?$9 million Series-A extension from Gates Foundation and Helios Venture
Nigeria?- Accrue,?a fintech startup in the space of cross-border payments in Africa, has secured $1.58 million in seed funding led by Lattice.?
Egypt?- Egyptian fintech MoneyHash,?that provides APIs to help businesses in Africa and the Middle East manage their online payments on a single platform, raised?$5.2 million Pre-Series A from Flourish Ventures.?
AFTS Community Activity
African fintech Moniepoint gets $10M Visa backing, plans to work on contactless payments
Nigeria?- AFTSNairobi24??Fintech Use Case of the Year?award winner & African Unicorn Moniepoint has secured funding from global fintech giant & AFTSNairobi24?Excellence in Enablement award winner Visa. Read more at Techcrunch.?
领英推荐
Ilara Health raises $1 million from United States International DFC
Kenya - Past AFTS Alpha Expo Pitch Competition cohort Ilara Health?scored a $1 million loan from the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to level up private outpatient clinics in Kenya.?
Circle announces acquisition of Hashnote and USYC Tokenized Money Market Fund alongside strategic partnership with global trading firm DRW
Switzerland?- AFTSNairobi24 VIP Dinner co-Sponsor & Speaker?Circle, a global financial technology company and stablecoin market leader, announced its acquisition of Hashnote – the issuer of USYC incubated by Cumberland Labs – which according to 3rd-party analysts RWA.xyz is the largest tokenized treasury and money market fund in the world, with $1.52B deployed into USYC as of January 15, 2025.
Kenyan Fintech Associations merge to create The FinTech Alliance (TFA)
Kenya??- AFTSNairobi24 Strategic Partner Association of Fintechs in Kenya (AFIK) has collaborated with other 4 associations to create The Fintech Alliance in a groundbreaking ceremony held in Nairobi!
PalmPay joins Zone’s regulated blockchain network to enhance payment reliability
Nigeria?- AFTS past sponsor, speaker?& Africa's fastest-growing payment infrastructure company, Zone, announced that PalmPay, one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms for payment, has joined its decentralized payment network. This integration with Zone’s regulated blockchain network for payment enables PalmPay to fortify its payment capabilities, ensuring reliable, secure, and compliant transactions across its extensive network of 1,200,000 agents and merchants.
2025?Startup Funding to Date - WeeTracker
Featured Read
AFTS' long term partner & strategic partner Briter Bridges has co-authored a report entitled?Innovative Financing for Inclusive Credit Fintechs in Africa this week.?The report explores innovative financing strategies for reaching inclusive credit fintechs in Africa, that have the potential to address the estimated US$ 4.9 trillion global credit gap for MSEs particularly those targeting underserved micro and small enterprises (MSEs).?
AFTSDC2025 New Venture Pitch Competition registration opens!??
The Registration for New Venture Pitch Competition taking place during the 13th Africa Fintech Summit at Halcyon House, Washington DC on the 24th of April 2025 is now open. Early-Stage Startups can review the requirements and submit their interest before the deadline of 28 February HERE.?
Video of the Week!
As registration for the 2025 New Venture Competition is now open, the video of the week will take us down memory lane to the New Venture Competition that took place in April 2023 at AFTSDC23! Enjoy the video!
Flashback from #AFTSNAIROBI24
Selected pictures of AFTSNairobi24 that took place at the JW Marriott Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sept 4-5, 2024!
#AFTSDC2025 Partners & Sponsors
Coming Soon!
Visionary | Problem Solver | Story Teller Ace the hearts. Spade the Diamonds CEO&Founder: Stebofarm
1 个月I'm happy that people especially VC's will soon realise that investing EARLY in africa is the best eal of the century. Congratulations to Moniepoint Group and all stakeholders involved. SteboPay is next. Benjamin Fernandes please help on this issue of SteboPay