Afridigest Fintech Review: Lots of fintech love in Techstars' new Lagos accelerator
Week 5 2023: January 29 - February 4
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 and the regular Week in Review goes out on Mondays.
On to the week’s highlights:
• Roughly $240M in equity was raised in disclosed fintech deals — and Africa’s newest unicorn, MNT-Halan, accounts for over 80% of it.
• Fintech news worth noting: Nigeria’s quest to unbank the banked caused pretty widespread chaos in the country. And Kenya withdrew its financial impropriety case against Flutterwave, Africa’s most valuable startup.
• There’s an interesting look at the progress neobanks have made across Africa in the chart of the week below.
• Companies appearing in today’s Fintech Review: MNT-Halan, Lulalend, SunFi, Gwala, Nala, M-PESA, Paymob, Cellulant, Mastercard, Palmpay, MFS Africa, Jumo & more.
• Executives appearing: Flutterwave’s GB Agboola, Affinity’s Tarek Mouganie, Carbon’s Ngozi Dozie, Lami’s Jihan Abass, Nala’s Benji Fernandes, Yellow Card’s John Colson, Jumo’s Joe Mucheru, Unlimint’s Trevor Goott, Lendsqr’s Adedeji Olowe, Eyowo’s Yomi Adedeji, Avenews’ Shalom Ben-Or, Allianz Nigeria’s Adeolu Adewumi-Zer, & more.
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Week 5 2023: January 29 - February 4
💸 FundraisesAFRICA
🇪🇬 MNT-Halan, an Egyptian superapp turned ‘fintech ecosystem’, raised $200M in equity
🇿🇦 Lulalend, a South African digital lending platform & digital bank targeting SMEs, raised a $35M Series B
🇳🇬 SunFi, a Nigerian solar energy-focused financing platform connecting supply (providers/installers), demand (businesses & consumers), and financing options, raised a $2.3M seed round
🇲🇦 Gwala, a Moroccan earned wage access platform, raised an undisclosed pre-seed
The ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator announced its inaugural class and it’s 75% fintech:
🇳🇬 Nigeria: CDcare, an installment payments platform; Flick, a unified payments platform; Keble, a platform enabling fractional real estate investments; Keza, a smartphone financing platform; Oystr Finance, a provider of micro-lending infrastructure; Salad, an earned wage access platform; Vittas, a B2B digital lender targeting healthcare providers;
🇰🇪 Kenya: alphabloQ, a platform enabling fractional real estate investments; Cladfy, a provider of micro-lending infrastructure
DEBT
🇿🇦 Yellow, a South African pay-as-you-go asset-backed financing platform, received a $5M loan facility
🇰🇪 MyCredit, a Kenyan digital lending platform, received a $2.6M loan facility
💡 Executive Insights: To win, banks must embrace their roles as enablers.Flutterwave’s CEO on the competition in financial services between banks, fintechs, and telcos:
Read more on our LinkedIn page, smash the follow button while you’re there, and connect with GB here.
🚀 Partnerships & Product LaunchesPARTNERSHIPS
Tanzanian international money transfer platform Nala and Vodacom’s M-PESA announced a partnership that enables Nala users in 21 countries across the UK, US, and Europe to send money to M-PESA wallets.