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.

⭐ Not interested in fintech? No problem: visit the Notifications section of your Account Settings page and deselect the Fintech option.

If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll only see a preview of this Fintech Review. Remember to upgrade your subscription or start a trial to read it in full.

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Week 5 2023: January 29 - February 4

💸 Fundraises

AFRICA

• 🇪🇬 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

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💡 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.

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🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

PARTNERSHIPS

Benjamin Fernandes 🇹🇿 @Benji_Fernandes

If you know African payments you know what Mpesa is; a global leader in pioneering mobile money payments. #MPESAxNALA Today we enabled 21 countries across the UK, US and Europe to send money to Mpesa wallets instantly. @NALAmoney x #Mpesa Let’s #BuildOurAfrica 👊🏾

• 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.