Afridigest Fintech Review: Some much needed good news for Africa's most valuable startup
Week 35: August 28 - September 3
The Afridigest Fintech Review is a weekly recap of what happened in African fintech.
Hello, friends! Apologies for the delay with this week’s Fintech Review. We’ll be back to the regular publishing schedule shortly. Feedback is of course welcome: Whatsapp, Twitter, and email.
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On to this week’s highlights:
• It was an interesting week for fintech funding on the continent with four deals announced for $13.3M in disclosed equity funding.
• Flutterwave, Africa’s most valuable startup, announced some much needed good news after taking a PR beating in recent months. The company is pressing on with IPO plans that'll have a widespread impact across the ecosystem.
• McKinsey released a must-read report on Fintech in Africa. Expect a breakdown from Afridigest in some form soon.
Week 35: August 28 - September 3
💸 Fundraises🇰🇪 Pezesha, a Kenyan embedded lending platform raised an $11M ($6M equity, $5M debt) pre-Series A round led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners. Founded in 2017, Pezesha provides a credit scoring API that partners like Jumia, Twiga, Copia, and MarketForce integrate into their platforms, ultimately helping their MSME vendor-clients receive working capital loan offers in real-time.
🇳🇬 Duplo, a Nigerian B2B payments platform, raised a $4.3M seed round from 40+ investors. The company initially focused on the retail market, digitizing payments between FMCG retailers and distributors, but has since expanded to a variety of other verticals. It’s worth remembering The Information’s July scoop that American VC/PE firm Insight Partners pulled the plug on its signed offer to lead this round.
🇳🇬 Grey (formerly Aboki Africa), a Nigerian cross-border payments & virtual international bank accounts platform, raised a $2M seed round. The company helps freelancers, remote workers, and other users in Nigeria and Kenya receive foreign payments using USD, GBP, and EUR virtual bank accounts.
🇳🇬 Anchor, a Nigerian banking-as-a-service and embedded finance platform, raised a $1M pre-seed. The seven-month-old startup provides APIs and other tools that help developers embed and build various banking products & services.
💰 Venture FundsKepple Africa Ventures and EMURGO Africa signed an MoU to jointly spearhead Web3 investment opportunities in Africa
🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches
Nigerian vehicle-financing mobility fintech Moove Africa signed an MoU with Suzuki Motor Corporation and MUFG Bank to leverage Suzuki and MUFG’s global networks to support Moove’s expansion to emerging markets beyond Africa.
Be smart: Launched in Lagos, Nigeria in 2020, Moove has since scaled to seven markets across sub-Saharan Africa and six additional markets across MENA, Asia, and Europe. The company has raised a lot of money in a short amount of time—over $200M to date—and is moving quickly to capture the opportunity it sees globally. Suzuki and MUFG Bank are committed partners in this effort and, to date, Suzuki has supplied over 4,000 Indian-made compact cars such as S-PRESSO to Moove in South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana.Zapper, a South African mobile payments company, has partnered with Stitch, a South African API fintech startup, to allow users in the country to make instant payments. The collaboration will allow Zapper users to make instant electronic funds transfer (ETF) payments via Stitch’s LinkPay product at a fraction of the cost of card payments. LinkPay competes with Ozow Instant EFT payments in South Africa.
Nigerian open banking infrastructure provider Mono launched its new Telco API. The API will enable companies to access user permissioned telco data to build more inclusive products & services.
📰 News of the WeekFlutterwave secures Switching and Processing license from the Central Bank of Nigeria. Receiving Nigeria’s most valuable payments processing license is much needed good news for the startup that’s been battling a flurry of negative PR in recent months. In fact, this week brought more of the same as the Kenyan High Court froze another $3.3M belonging to Flutterwave that it says is linked to card fraud and money laundering. Still, Flutterwave presses on and the week also saw renewed media reports about the company’s Nasdaq IPO plans.
🙈 Visual of the week
📑 Read of the WeekFintech in Africa: The end of the beginning. (PDF) McKinsey took a look at African fintech in a new report that attracted a lot of media attention.
Pair with:
Why African fintechs' revenue might reach $230 billion by 2025 (Benjamin Dada)
Africa is still scratching the surface on fintech penetration and growth (Quartz)
McKinsey sees Africa fintech sales surging eightfold by 2025 (Gulf Business)
Clear monetisation strategies and regulatory engagement: How African fintechs can position for growth (Techpoint)
👔 People MovesJephtah Chidozie Uche, previously CTO at Kippa, left the organization
Tori Samples, previously CTO at Leaf Global Fintech, left the organization
📜 Other News, Reads, and MediaNEWS
Fund linked to former US Vice-President Al Gore Vice President buys stake in fintech firm M-KOPA
Nigeria-based financial super app PalmPay announced that it doubled its user base in the last six months and now has 10 million users in Nigeria
Moneymie, a Nigerian digital banking platform for immigrants, has shut down its retail service to focus on B2B services
The Central African Republic’s Constitutional Court deemed the country’s plan to offer land and mineral resources to investors in the country’s cryptocurrent unconstitutional
ESSAYS
Christo Davel, CCO at BaaS platform Direct Transact (and previously founder of South African digital bank 20twenty), writes ‘Why digital neobanks are not winning the financial services game’
Robert Yawe, Director of Synaptech Solutions, writes ‘mPesa and the death of the SME’
John Haule, Swahilies Founder & CEO, writes ‘How to digitize the billion dollar mobile money agent market’
Oluseyi Akinkugbe, Head of Product at Youverify Inc. writes ‘The best way to explain Bitcoin, Blockchain & eNaira’
Stephen K. Muriithi of GreenHouse Capital writes ‘Africa’s hidden growth opportunity: betting on venture debt’
OTHER READS
Open banking in Africa raises more questions than it answers (TechCabal)
South Africa’s lowest-cost bank isn’t a bank (BusinessTech)
🐤 Tweets of the WeekA thought from a Nigerian founder on fee structures & unicorns distorting markets:
A word on the type of financial inclusion the continent really needs:
A thread encouraging African fintech founders to emulate Apple’s example in playing the long game:
🗣️ Community Corner and OpportunitiesApplications are now being accepted until September 15th for the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT)’s Catapult: Inclusion Africa Program — it’s an all-expenses-paid, week-long boot camp for African fintechs that want to forge connections between Africa and Europe
Applications are now open until September 16th for the 2022 Ecobank Fintech Challenge — Africa-centered fintechs are eligible to win a $50,000 cash prize & more
MADE IN NIGERIA 🇳🇬 WITH 💚
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