Afridigest Fintech Review: Egypt gets a new Central Bank-approved money app
Week 47 2022: November 20-26
The Afridigest Fintech Review is a weekly recap of what happened in African fintech.
Hello again, friends! Remember: this Fintech Review goes out on Sundays, the regular Week in Review goes out on Mondays, and the French-language Revue de la Semaine goes out on Wednesdays. (Assuming no delays.)
On to this week’s highlights:
• Four Africa-focused fintech deals were announced for ~$17M. (Adaverse also announced its participation in Afropolitan’s pre-seed round, but as the round was previously disclosed, this is excluded.)
• Egypt’s Central Bank approved a new money app, Copia partnered with Cellulant to boost e-commerce transactions in rural Kenya, and Tayo Oviosu penned a piece for The Economist.
• Safaricom, Stitch, Autochek, Zilla, & others launched new product & service offerings.
• Other companies mentioned in today’s Fintech Review: Djamo, Pivo, Revio, Boundless Pay, Zeepay, Mara, Samsung, M-PESA, Appzone, Klivvr, Telda, Paystack, MoneyHash, & more.
• Executives mentioned include Paga’s Tayo Oviosu, Yoco’s Katlego Maphai, Kyshi’s Ayo Akindele, Cowrywise’s Razaq Ahmed, Revio’s Nicole Dunn, M-KOPA’s Babajide Duroshola, Binance’s Nadeem Anjarwalla, Quona Capital’s Monica Brand Engel, and First Circle Capital’s Selma Ribica.
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Week 47 2022: November 20-26
-💸 FundraisesAFRICA
🇨🇮 Djamo, an Ivorian digital bank, raised $14M in a venture round.
🇳🇬 Pivo, a Nigerian credit & financial services platform for supply chain SMEs, raised a $2M seed round.
🇿🇦 Revio, a South African API-driven payments orchestration, revenue recovery, and automated billings platform, raised a $1.1M seed round.
🇳🇬 Boundless Pay, a Nigerian blockhain-enabled payments & remittances platform, raised an undisclosed pre-seed (rumored to be $100K+).
🚀 Partnerships & Product LaunchesPARTNERSHIPS
Copia Global, an African B2C e-commerce platform, announced a partnership with paytech platform Cellulant. As a result of the partnership, Copia users in the diaspora and in local urban areas can use Cellulant’s network to make payments and buy items for friends & family in rural parts of Kenya.
Copia’s $50M Series C was the deal of the week in Week 3’s Week in Review, and we then noted Copia’s focus on rural parts of Kenya and Uganda.
