Yellow Card Raises $33M, JP Morgan Opens Offices in Nairobi & Abidjan, Nigerian Mobility Fintech Moove Expands to Mexico, and More
Africa Fintech Summit
The global initiative dedicated to building an ecosystem of investors, pioneers, industry leaders in African Fintech.
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Making the news??
JP Morgan Opens representative offices in Nairobi and Abidjan
CEO Jamie Dimon pays a visit to Africa, which coincides with the opening of rep offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and Abidjan, C?te d'Ivoire, and the hiring of Sailepu as the bank's country Lead in Kenya after the CBK announced license approval this week and Michael as C?te d'Ivoire Country Lead. “What we want to do is open in more countries in Africa so that over time, the next generation has a footprint here,” Dimon said at a Nigerian Economic Summit Group event in Abuja, Nigeria. “We are quite optimistic about the future of Africa.” - Bloomberg.
Thunes expands?its Direct Global Network to Egypt
Singapore-based Fintech Thunes announced the expansion of its Direct Global Network into Egypt, offering enhanced mobile wallet and bank account payment capabilities - Learn more.
Endeavor South Africa secures $11m first close of Harvest Fund III
Endeavor South Africa secured $11M as it aims to catalyze growth in high-potential tech-related companies across the African continent. Major investors include Standard Bank, Allan Gray, and the SA SME Fund - Disrupt Africa.
Jumia exiting Tunisian & South African markets
Focusing on markets with stronger growth potential, Africa's e-commerce company Jumia confirmed it is ceasing operations in its non-strategic markets of Tunisia and South Africa by end of 2024. Jumia believes that exiting these markets and refocusing resources on its other nine markets will leave the company better positioned to accelerate overall growth and further improve efficiency.
Banking & Telecom Activity
The Ethiopian Government sells 10% of its shares in Ethio Telecom to Ethiopian Citizens?
Ethiopian Investment Holdings, the sovereign investment arm of the Ethiopian Government and the sole shareholder of Ethiopia's largest telecom giant - Ethio Telecom - has availed 10% of its ownership to Ethiopian citizens to be purchased via Telebirr?mobile wallet. This comes ahead of the operationalization of Ethiopia's Securities?Exchange and Ethio Telecom is expected to be one of the first companies to be listed, hence making the shares in?offer tradable publicly by then. Deloitte Ethiopia was the transaction advisor to Ethio Telecom's Initial Offer to the Public.?
Kenyan Bank KCB in a 230M EURO Financing Deal with EIB for SMEs, youth and women
AFTSAddis2019 Sponsor and Kenyan bank KCB inked a 230M Euro deal with EIB focusing on youth, women, and SME financing -?Business Daily.?
Startup Activity
Ghana -?e-health startup BIMA has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from AAIC Investment to accelerate its expansion - Disrupt Africa.?
Kenya -?Cleantech startup Octavia Carbon closes $5m seed round?to further develop and deploy its groundbreaking technology, which leverages geothermal resources – especially waste heat – to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere - Disrupt Africa.
Kenya - Cleantech?Sistema.bio gets $15 million to scale clean energy technology across Africa.?This funding will allow the firm?to?advance its regenerative agriculture solutions?and availing to?smallholder farmers worldwide - Techpoint Africa.
Egypt -?Rabbit Mobility, an Egyptian startup specializing in micro-mobility, has successfully raised USD 1.3M in a?funding round?led by Global 500 and Untapped Global - Waya Media.?
Featured Read
Tunisa-based AI Startup InstaDeep was acquired by Germany's BioNTech in the largest tech startup exit to date at $550M last year. In an interview with Tage Kene-Okafor of Tech Crunch, its co-founder & CEO Karim Beguir says that ‘where we are today in biology AI is similar to GPT in 2020' and cites real-life changing innovations if the startup in biomedicine and beyond. Read more at Tech Crunch.
2024 Startup Funding to Date - WeeTracker
AFTS community in the news
Yellow Card closes $33M Series C funding round
AFTS longtime partner and one of the early Alpha Expo Mini Accelerator & Pith Competition cohort Yellow Card has closed a $33M Series C funding from Blockchain Capital?with participation from Polychain Capital, Third Prime Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Block, Inc., Galaxy Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, Hutt Capital, and Winklevoss Capital.
领英推荐
AFTSNairobi2024 'Best Fintech Investment of the Year' award recipient?Moove expands to Mexico
One month after it launched in the US, the Nigerian startup that finances vehicles for ride-hailing has expanded to Mexico. The company projects it will become profitable in 2025 - Tech Cabal.
AFTS Sponsor Klasha raises an additional $2M in funding to expand its B2B cross-border payment rail to China
Klasha, a cross-border solution provider has raised a $2M additional funding from its existing investors, brining total funding todate to $6.5M. The funding will help Klasha provide cross border payment solutions to merchants in Asia & Africa through its payment rails.?
Flutterwave powers first-Ever Hotel-on-PoS solution in Nigeria's hospitality industry
AFTS long time sponsor and partner Flutterwave continues to provide innovative solutions to African enterprises and this time powering the hospitality sector via a smart hotel management solution, named?Roomstatus, that is set to revolutionize both the cost-effectiveness and ease of managing hotels across Nigeria and across Africa - Fintech Magazine.Africa.?
AFTSNairobi2024 Gold Sponsor Safaricom expands its M-PESA Global?Services to Ethiopia
Safaricom has expanded M-PESA Global service to Ethiopia in?collaboration with Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC. As a result,?M-PESA users can now send money directly to Ethiopia via their M-PESA wallet! This is especially beneficial for Ethiopians living in Kenya and Kenyans working in Ethiopia, and anyone with business ties in both countries.
AFTS Excellence in Connectivity Award Recipient MTN has the best mobile network in South Africa
MyBroadband Insights has released its Q3 2024 Mobile Network Quality Report, which shows that MTN has the best mobile network in South Africa,?beating Vodacom, Cell C, Telkom, and Rain in network quality.?
Save the date - #AFTSDC2025
The 13th Africa Fintech Summit will take place in Washington DC on the 24th of April 2025 during the WB/IMF Spring meeting week. Interested in sponsoring or partnering? Reach out to the team at [email protected].?
Visualization of the Week
CB Insights has this week released the State of Fintech Q3-24??that highlighted Africa had a $0.3B funding for 21 rounds during the quarter, which was 3% of the global share. This was mainly?spurred by big ticket fundraises of MNT Halan & NALA. See the global funding visualization of Q3, courtesy of CB Insights.?
Video of the Week
Congratulations AFTS' Alpha Expo Pitch Competition Cohort Yellow Card on their $33M Series C round announced this week! A longtime AFTS speaker and Pitch competition participant?Chris Mauris, Co-Founder & CEO of Yellow Card, shares his experience of the Africa Fintech Summit in this video!
Impressive update on Africa's fintech landscape! It's inspiring to see the rapid growth and expansion of innovative fintech solutions across the continent. Keep up the great work!