Afridigest Week in Review: An encore for agent-led e-commerce

+Big week for Nigeria and Kenya +Fintech-enabled marketplaces +Quant methods applied to web3 +A stealth 2021 mega-round +2021 Africa investment reports +Founder interviews: Mono, Carbon, & more

Emeka Ajene

Feb 7

The Afridigest Week in Review is a must-read weekly recap for Africa-focused founders, executives, and investors, as well as interested observers. Share it liberally. 😊

Welcome back, friends! The most clicked link from last week was the a16z newsletter that highlighted the emergence of a B2B e-commerce + fintech playbook across emerging markets. And in case you missed it, I published a piece on trends & developments across the ecosystem in Jan 2022. Anyhow, let’s get into Week 5.

If you’re new, welcome 🙌 — you’ll receive a weekly digest like this one every Monday and, generally (but not always), an original essay/article on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive.

Week 5 2022: Jan 30 - Feb 5

International Women's Day - GIF — Credit: *Seth Eckert*

📰 Deal of the Week

EGYPTIAN-STYLE E-COMMERCE

Brimore, an Egyptian social commerce & agent distribution platform, raised a $25M Series A co-led by the IFC and Endure Capital, with participation from new investors Fawry, Flourish, & Endeavor Catalyst Fund, existing investors Algebra Ventures, Disruptech, Khawarizmi Ventures, & Vision Ventures, and others. Brimore previously raised a $3.5M Pre-Series A in May 2020 and $800K in a seed round in 2019.

💡 Why it’s the deal of the week: In Week 38 2021, we wrote that “Brimore is rumored to be targeting a $15-20M round, including up to $5M from the IFC.” And here it is, slightly larger than expected. As we’ve shared before, we’re big fans of agent network-led businesses/initiatives across the continent, and Brimore, like Copia, is among the leaders in the e-commerce space — it has grown revenue ~400x over the last three years.

Similar to Copia, Brimore is effectively a catalogue-based distribution system that leverages technology, proprietary warehousing & logistics (via a spinoff called Milezmore), and a network of ~75,000 agents (the vast majority of whom are women) who take end customers’ orders face-to-face or digitally and can serve as delivery/pick up points.

According to CEO & Co-Founder Mohamed Abdulaziz, Brimore is “leveraging the power of people and their social networks to solve the problem of market access … and disrupt the traditional distribution model.”

⛏️ Go deeper:

Use of funds:
- Brimore’s immediate focus is on accelerating growth in Egypt, improving its logistics and operational infrastructure, and expanding its supplier network and the number of SKUs offered; it currently offers ~8,000 SKUs from over 300 suppliers
- Brimore also plans to introduce new credit products and expand to other MENASSA markets; in a November 2021 interview, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer Ahmed Sheikh specified that the company was considering expanding to Kenya and Morocco in 2022
Why the Milezmore spinoff: “We used to outsource delivery and warehousing, but with the massive growth, no provider could keep up with our pace and cost structure… Milezmore will help serve our business, as well as other businesses, since we plan on opening up the service to the market.” — Co-Founder Ahmed Sheikh
Early days: See Brimore’s now three-year-old pitch at the Flat6Labs Cairo Demo Day:

🔦 Other deals

BIG WEEK FOR NIGERIA AND KENYA

Bamboo, a Nigerian trading & investment platform providing access to global financial markets, raised a $15M Series A co-led by Greycroft and Tiger Global, with participation from Motley Fool Ventures, Chrysalis Capital, Saison Capital, and others — Bamboo has over 300,000 users in Nigeria, 20% of whom are active daily traders; it will soon expand to Ghana where it has a waitlist of ~50,000 users
Yalla Fel Sekka (YFS), an Egyptian logistics & quick-commerce platform, raised a $7M Series A led by DisruptAD, with participation from Kharafi Group, Flybridge Capital, I Squared Capital, and others — YFS has a fleet of ~1,000 active drivers that make ~10,000 orders daily; it has completed ~2million deliveries in 18 months while maintaining a customer retention rate above 90%
Nestcoin, a Nigerian platform that builds, operates, and invests in crypto native products across Africa, raised a $6.45M pre-seed from Alameda Research, Distributed Global, Alter Global, Serena Ventures, A&T Capital, MSA Capital, 4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, Goat.vc, Old Fashion Research, CMT Digital, Electric Capital, Social Capital, CoinFund, gumi Cryptos Capital, DeFi Alliance, Ventures Platform, Future Africa, Voltron Capital, and others — Since launching, Nestcoin has collaborated with crypto-exchange Bitsika to launch a social token for artist Davido, deployed play-to-earn crypto gaming platform Metaverse Magna, and has invested in LazerPay and Altschool; it aims to introduce additional DeFi projects in Q2
Amitruck, a Kenyan tech-enabled logistics platform, raised a $4M seed round led by Better Tomorrow Ventures, with participation from Dynamo Ventures, Rackhouse Venture Capital, Flexport Inc, Knuru Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Uncovered Fund, and others — In addition to its consumer business, Amitruck has over 300 B2B customers in Kenya including Twiga, Unilever, L’Oréal, and SkyGarden
Casava, a Nigerian digital insurance company, raised a $4M pre-seed led by Target Global, with participation from Entrée Capital and a variety of local and global angel investors — Casava currently provides health and job loss insurance to over 66,000 customers with $16M in insurance coverage; it has ~1,000 doctors available for telemedicine consulting and works with ~900 hospitals across Nigeria
Afya Rekod, a Kenyan digital health record & healthcare management platform, raised a $2M seed round led by MaC VC, with participation from Next Chymia and others — Afya Rekod is an Adanian Labs startup and has over 150,000 users across 5 countries
Carscan, a South African platform leveraging augmented reality & artificial intelligence to create digital vehicle identity records, raised ~$1.3M from Kalon Venture Partners, Launch Africa, the IDF, Allan Gray E2 Ventures, and AlphaCode — Carscan operates in South Africa, Nigeria, and India, and has recently completed successful proof of concepts in several Gulf countries
AltSchool, a Nigerian online school for software engineering & digital skills, raised a $1M pre-seed from Voltron Capital, Nestcoin, Pledges, ODBA, and others — To date, over AltSchool has received over 8,000 paid applications from 19 countries (including 14 African countries, principally Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Botswana).
HeyFood, a Nigerian food delivery platform, and EaziPay, a Nigerian provider of payroll, bookkeeping, & corporate tax solutions for startups & SMEs, joined Y Combinator’s W22 batch — This takes the number of African startups in the batch to 11; HeyFood and EaziPay join the nine other batch W22 startups listed in Week 3’s Week in Review
Ubawa, a Kenyan omnichannel payments gateway, raised a $350K seed round from Platform Capital
Ndovu, a Kenyan trading & investment platform providing access to global financial markets, raised an undisclosed pre-seed from 4DX Ventures, Plug and Play Tech Center, Future Africa, and Oui Capital — Ndovu officially launched in Kenya this week
TeamApt, a Nigerian fintech platform offering agency banking solutions, SME enterprise software, and digital banking & payment solutions, raised an undisclosed amount from Lightrock — Bloomberg reported in November that the company was in talks to raise a $150M Series C at a $1B valuation; this fundraise seems neither to be a part of that upcoming Series C nor the previous Series B
MAX, a Nigerian mobility & vehicle subscription platform, raised an undisclosed amount from The Rwanda Innovation Fund — the goal of the investment is to accelerate MAX’s expansion to Rwanda and across East Africa
Nawah Scientific, an Egyptian platform offering on-demand scientific, research, and analytical services to the life sciences community, announced that it raised an undisclosed sum from the Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund (CASF) — In 6 years of operations, Nawah has analyzed over 200K samples from 12 countries; the satrtup previously announced in that Dr. Essam Abdelhadi, a former Abbott executive, invested an undisclosed amount in its upcoming Series A
Kwanza Tukule, a Kenyan tech-enabled B2B food distribution & logistics platform, raised an undisclosed amount from DOB Equity, Elea Foundation, and A to Z Impact
KrediblePro, a Mauritian referral-based talent sourcing & reference-checking platform, received an undisclosed strategic investment from Rwazi, a Mauritian field data collection platform

DEBT

Moove, a Nigerian, raised a $10M financing facility from NBK Capital Partners Mezzanine Fund II — it’s the first investment in Africa by NBK Capital Partners funds

GRANTS, CROWDFUNDING, & OTHER

Aladdin, a Nigerian digital bank, reached its initial $400K target on WeFunder and is now targeting $1M

M&A

Lami, a Kenyan API-driven insurance platform, acquired Bluewave Insurance Agency, a Kenyan micro-insurance distribution platform, for an undisclosed amount — With the deal, Lami enters Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where Bluewave is already operational; Bluewave founder Adelaide Odhiambo joins Lami as Head of Commercial Partnerships

FUNDS

The Norrsken22 African Tech Growth Fund announced the $110M first close of a targeted $200M, $65M of which comes from a group of global unicorn founders including Flutterwave co-founder Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola — Norrsken22 plans to make 20 investments at an average ticket size of $10M, with 40% of its capital being deployed in Series A and B rounds and the balance in follow-on Series C rounds and beyond

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The Afridigest Week in Review is designed to inform Africa-interested founders, executives, investors, and observers. Share it with those interested in innovation across the continent. 🙏🏽

📚 Quick Hits

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE

The new operating manual for fintech-enabled marketplaces — Nearly every marketplace is trying to get closer to the transaction by embedding financial services into their product experiences. NFX’s Pete Flint shares a new operating playbook for this trend
Value investor's guide to web3 — Always interesting, Sparkline Capital’s Kai Wu focuses his unique “intangible value” lens and hedge fund quant methods on the web3 ecosystem; worth a look for the industry classifications & much more
Breaking down network effects — “Network effects aren’t one singular effect, but rather made up of three distinct forces: the Acquisition Effect which allows products to tap into their network to drive growth in users more cheaply as the network grows; the Engagement Effect which involves user engagement going up as the network grows; and the Economic Effect which involves monetization rates going up as the network grows. Let’s go deeper on each one.”
The productization of venture capital — “Founders don't particularly care what stage or sector you want to focus on. They want to understand what you can do for them … Very few firms have a clear answer to the question ‘what is your differentiated product?’ There has never been a better time for venture firms to stop and think about what a product-led venture firm would do”

Bonus:

The race to the super app — An interesting report from FT Partners’ report on global (financial) super apps; a bit light on the Africa coverage however
- Pair with: How Africa’s super app landscape is evolving

🙈 Visual of the week

FINTECH: WHERE WE ARE WORLDWIDE

“Globally, financial technology is projected to reach a market value of $305B by 2025 … [And] the industry is at the point where the internet, mobile, and cloud computing are table stakes, even for established players that more slowly adopt technology … [I]nnovation in the next five to eight years will come from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing.”

Source: Fintech, explained. Tracy Mayor, Senior News Editor & Writer, MIT Sloan.

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

REPORTS

VIDEO

Investment banker Vishal Agarwal and corporate lawyer Raj Kulasingam spoke with SABC about their plans for a SPAC targeting African tech startups
Abdul Hassan, CEO & Co-Founder of Mono, discussed his background, building Mono, and more on Peace Itimi’s Founders Connect
Chijioke Dozie, Co-Founder of Carbon, discussed building Carbon on CFTE’s Fintech Founders series
Alain Nteff, CEO of Healthlane, discussed the past, present, and future of healthtech in West Africa at the 2021 Techpoint Build conference
Michael Jordaan, Co-Founder of South African digital mutual bank Bank Zero, spoke with BusinessTech on Bank Zero’s business model & how it has transformed the South African banking industry

PODCASTS & AUDIO

Ahmad Yousry - Co-founder and CEO of Rabbit discusses quick commerce in Egypt on the Not From Silicon Valley podcast (Rabbit raised an $11M pre-seed in November, a record pre-seed round for startups in the Middle East and Africa)
Adebiyi Aromolaran, Head of Africa Expansion at Dlocal, joins the Chini ya Maji podcast
PayHippo CEO & Co-Founder Chioma Okotcha spoke about the Payhippo story in a FirstCheck Africa Twitter Space
M-KOPA’s Tsakane Ngoepe, Chipper Cash’s Wiza Jalakasi, and Yoco’s Marcello Schermer discussed fintech in Africa in a Fintech Today Twitter Space

ESSAYS

Kamso Nwani, VC Analyst at LoftyInc, writes ‘Understanding API infrastructure and why Banking-as-a-Service helps businesses win’
Tomi Davies, Chief Investment Officer at Greentec Capital Partners writes ‘Africa's Fintech Soonicorns’
Abubakar Nur Khalil, Bitcoin core contributor, ₿Trust board member, and CEO at Recursive Capital, writes ‘Growing the bitcoin development ecosystem in Africa’
Efosa Ojomo, Senior Research Fellow at the Christensen Institute writes ‘A market creation story: Rice Afrika Technologies’
Matt Grasser, Sam Alhadeff, and the BFA Global/Catalyst Fund team write ‘Why we invested: OZE is equipping small businesses with digital tools and access to growth capital’
Sayo Folawiyo, Co-Founder of Kandua, writes for Techcabal that ‘Purpose-driven startups in Africa are growing at an explosive rate’
Yariv Cohen & Angela Homsi write for Rwanda’s New Times that ‘Investment in African startups is at an all-time high’
Timothy Motte of The Realistic Optimist writes ‘Ecosystem Deep Dives #14: Morocco - Blessings & Curses’
The Partech team writes ‘Chapter54: Why the African tech market is a hotbed of expansion potential’

INTERVIEWS

Peach Payment’s Rahul Jain — How an entrepreneur with Delhi roots is making digital payments easier in Africa (Times of India)

🗣️ Community Corner

I see you, friends!

Congrats to Zino Asamaige as he leaves Helicarrier to focus on Accrue; we featured Accrue in Week 35 2021’s startup spotlight 🚀
Congrats to Koromone “KK” Koroye for the new role as TechCabal’s acting editor-in-chief and congrats also to Money Myths Africa’s Abraham Augustine on joining TechCabal as a senior reporter 🙌🏽
Congrats to Chari Co-Founders Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj on their selection as Endeavor Entrepreneurs 🥳
Congrats to Ato Bentsi-Enchill on the Wefunder Venture Partner role 💪🏽
Lastly, this Twitter thread from Eloho Omame on broken early-stage cap tables is a worthwhile read 💡

LA FIN

If you want to explore certain subjects more deeply, if you’re considering or already building something interesting in/for African markets, or if you’re (interested in) investing in African tech, I’d love to chat. Contact me on Whatsapp, slide in my Twitter DMs, or send me an email.

Thanks for reading 🙌
— Emeka

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