Afridigest Week in Review: More funding for Egyptian fintech

+17 other fundraises +VC fundraising news +SWVL (finally) goes public +The Indian startup ecosystem +Optimizing for luck +Prevalence of mobile money +A magical text expander +Much more

Emeka Ajene

Apr 4

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, & good luck in Q2! According to our tracking, Africa-focused startups raised upwards of $1.6B in disclosed equity funding in Q1 2022 — but more on that in Saturday’s newsletter.

The most clicked link from last week was Morgan Housel’s piece on how people think. And thanks to last week’s readers who pointed out that while SendStack isn’t participating in ODX Flexport, it’s still participating in the ODX accelerator. With that said, let’s get into Week 13.

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.

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Week 13 2022: March 27 - April 2

Multi vertical app — Credit: *Hanna Jung*

📰 Deal of the Week

FINTECH IN EGYPT

Khazna, an Egyptian financial super app, raised a $38M Series A (mixed debt and equity). The debt portion was led by Lendable and Quona Capital led the equity portion, with participation from Nclude, Speedinvest, Khawarizmi Ventures, Algebra Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, Disruptech, AB Accelerator by Arab Bank, CVentures, and others.

Launched in 2020 as an earned wage access/pay-on-demand platform, Khazna now offers a variety of financial products including BNPL solutions, bill payments, and prepaid debit cards, as well as a few non-financial services offerings. The company now has ~150,000 users across all its products.

⛏️ Go deeper:

Super App vs Digital Bank? “We are much more of a super app than a digital bank because we have, in addition to the financial services, launched multiple non-financial services as well on the app” — Co-Founder and CEO Omar Saleh
SPAC? According to CEO Omar Saleh, Khazna is apparently already planning for a SPAC IPO in 2024 or thereabout
A look back: Watch Khazna’s Omar Saleh’s 2020 discussion (with Nala’s Benji Fernandes) as part of the Berkeley-Stanford Africa Innovator Series:
No embeds allowed, so click the image or click here.

🔦 Other deals

OTHER FUNDRAISES ACROSS THE CONTINENT

CredPal, a Nigerian BNPL-focused consumer financing platform, raised a $15M (mixed debt & equity) bridge round from Greenhouse Capital, Uncovered Fund, LongCommerce, First Circle Capital, Credit Direct, and others — While the equity/debt split wasn’t formally disclosed, debt constituted “a very large chunk” of the round; CredPal has ~85,000 monthly active customers and ~600 monthly active merchants
Komaza, a Kenyan tech-enabled micro-forestry platform, announced a $10M fundraise from Mitsui & Co. and Sobrato Philanthropies — We previously highlighted Komaza’s model in the Spotlight section of Week 29 2020’s Week in Review
Eksab, an Egyptian fantasy football (soccer) platform, raised a $3M seed round led by 4DX Ventures, with participation from Darwazah Capital, Golden Palm Investments, P1 Ventures, and others — Launched in 2018, Eksab currently has over 700,000 Egyptian users
Tushop, a Kenyan agent-driven, community group-buying platform, raised a $3M pre-seed led by 4DX Ventures with participation from JAM Fund, Breyer Capital, Chandaria Capital, TO Ventures, Golden Palm Investments, FirstCheck Africa, DFS Lab, Wasoko (formerly Sokowatch), and others — This is Wasoko’s first strategic institutional investment
Waspito, a Cameroonian healthtech platform offering telemedicine, home sample collections, and an online health discussion forum, raised a ~$2.7M (1.7M FCFA) seed round from Launch Africa Ventures, Newtown Partners via the Imperial Venture Fund, BLOC Smart Africa, Orange Ventures, Saviu Ventures, Plug and Play, BringCom, and others — Founded in 2020, the startup has served over 15,000 patients to date
Intella, an Egyptian digital market research platform and real-time intelligence provider, raised a $1M seed round led by Hala Ventures, with participation from Falak Startups, Beyond Capital, and others — since its 2021 launch, Intella has served a variety of clients across different sectors, including the Ministry of HRSD and the Ministry of ICT in Saudi Arabia
Churpy, a Kenyan platform for managing accounts receivables, raised a $1M seed round led by Unicorn Growth Capital, with participation from Antler East Africa, Nairobi Business Angel Network, and Rally Cap Ventures
PayMint, an Egyptian B2B payments & lending platform, raised an undisclosed ‘seven-figure’ seed round from AUR Fintech (a subsidiary of AUR Capital)
CIRT (Consumption Innovation Real Time), a South African provider of IoT driven insights, raised ~$500K in seed funding from E Squared Investments — E Squared’s investment is the first commitment received of a targeted $1.7M seed round
Keep IT Cool, a Kenyan agtech/foodtech platform focused on cold chain logistics, announced over $500K “in investment commitment” from the UK government (FCDO), African Development Bank (AfDB), and the Kenyan government
Nash, a Kenyan B2B finance operating system announced its participation in Y Combinator’s W22 batch — Y Combinator invests $125K in exchange for 7% equity and an optional $375K convertible note (we treat this as $500K in our tracking)
Otida, an Egyptian health & fitness platform for diabetes management, raised a $340K pre-seed led by LoftyInc Capital Management, with participation from Flat6Labs Cairo, Afropreneurs, Jedar Capital, OQAL Angel Investors, UI Investments, and others — Otida collects a minimum of 100 data points per patient per day via wearables to deliver personalized care without reliance on traditional blood sugar monitors
Xpovi, an Egyptian robo-advisory platform offering AI-powered financial and business planning services, raised a $300K pre-seed
On Market, an Egyptian online grocery marketplace that allows customers to patronize multiple retailers in a single order, raised a $215K pre-seed — By the end of 2021, after over one year of operations, the platform delivered 20K orders worth ~$220K with a retention rate of 65%
Rwazi, a Mauritian data collection gig economy platform is participating in Techstars Los Angeles — Techstars offers $20K in exchange for a 6% equity and an optional $100K convertible note (we treat this as $120K in our tracking)
Bailport, A Kenyan/American digital wallet & money transfer platform is participating in the Techstars Filecoin accelerator — Techstars offers $20K in exchange for a 6% equity and an optional $100K convertible note (we treat this as $120K in our tracking)
Sticitt, a South African cashless payments platform for the education sector, raised an undisclosed seed round from Grindstone Ventures, Nustate Capital Ventures, Hlayisani Capital, Realm Digital, GalloProvincialis, and others

STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS

In addition to Wasoko’s strategic investment in Kenya’s Tushop (mentioned above), Flutterwave, the Nigerian payments unicorn, co-led the seed of the UK’s Dapio, a cashless payment solutions provider

IPO

Swvl, the Egyptian shared mobility, finally went public after the July 2021 announcement — it’s the first African company to list on the Nasdaq via SPAC IPO

FUNDRAISING

Disruptech, an Egyptian fintech-focused VC firm, announced that it raised over $25.1M in a second close — Disruptech plans to invest 30% of its funding in 2022 and its portfolio includes MNT-Halan, Brimore, Khazna, Cassbana, Fatora, and Nexta
Morocco’s Al Mada Holding Group announced a ~$110M (MAD 1.1B) pan-African venture capital fund to invest in tech or tech-enabled startups in financial services, health, logistics, education, and renewable energy across the continent
Egyptian banks and institutions announced the launch of the “Avans Manara” fund of funds targeting ~$109 million (EGP2 billion) — the SME-focused fund is apparently Egypt’s first fund of funds and is managed by Avans Capital Egypt, a venture capital fund manager with experience in Africa, Asia, and South America
Non-profit organization Empire Partner Foundation and the EPF Tech Fund, announced that they’re raising a further ~$5.5M (80M rand) to invest in South African pre-seed tech startups — LPs include NMVE Capital, TDM Ventures, and Digication Ventures, and the current portfolio includes Agricode, Digital Pulse, and MicroApps

A MESSAGE FROM INTELLENCE

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📚 Quick Hits

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE

Optimizing for luck — Jared Hecht, Founder of GroupMe and Fundera, on improving your luck as an entrepreneur: “As an entrepreneur just starting out, think of yourself and your life as a two-dimensional shape. There’s a lot you don’t know: people, information, how to do things, etc. You don’t have a ton of surface area. By increasing your surface area and transforming into a three-dimensional object, you exponentially increase the chances of becoming lucky.”
How to justify “non-sexy” product investments — Eventbrite’s Chief Product Officer Casey Winters on proving the value of “non-sexy” but impactful projects: “Non-sexy things include general user experience improvements, performance, developer velocity, infrastructure, technical debt, and… growth. I’ll walk through some frameworks and examples from my career on how to drive excitement and investment in these critical areas that may not be properly valued or staffed currently in your organization.”
Beating the market — NextView’s David Beisel on success & competitive advantage for VCs: “With every aspect of the venture value-chain becoming increasingly competitive, [VCs should ask themselves:] What edge do I have relative to sourcing, selecting, and adding value once an investment in the portfolio.”
The internet killed mainstream culture — Index Ventures’ Rex Woodbury on the internet’s impact on cultural fragmentation: “Internet culture is now culture writ large, and internet culture is definitionally non-mainstream... Culture is both bigger and smaller than ever before... We have 4.5 billion individual universes of culture, colliding & intersecting & building on one another to redefine how we collectively think and live.”

Bonus:

Blume Ventures’ 2022 Indus Valley report — Interesting report on the Indian startup ecosystem and India as a country of contradictions (from Sajith Pai & team)
Curating the internet — Bessemer’s Alexandra Sukin on the ongoing curation renaissance: “Choice overload plagues most internet users… The future of content curation will reduce the friction of search and reduce the self-education required to navigate the internet… There are elements of the curation experience that lend well to interesting business models and distribution mechanisms… The curation renaissance is just beginning.”

🙈 Visual of the week

AFRICA DOMINATES MOBILE MONEY

The fifteen countries with the highest mobile money prevalence are all found in Africa, according to the GSMA’s Mobile Money Prevalence Index — it blends mobile money adoption, activity, and accessibility per country into a composite index to facilitate comparisons between markets.

Source: The GSMA MoMo Prevalence Index and the State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2022 (PDF)

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

ESSAYS/REPORTS

Stephen Gugu, Founder Viktoria Ventures, writes ‘Do entry valuations really matter when the market is so bullish?’
Deji Oguntonade, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Director of Digital Payments (Nigeria), writes ‘Open banking: Insights for banks in Nigeria’
The GSMA released the 2022 State of the Industry report on mobile money (PDF)

PODCASTS & VIDEO

Accomplished businessman Hakeem Belo-Osagie discusses African entrepreneurship on the Grit & Growth podcast
Ifeoma Uddoh, Founder of Shecluded, discusses financial inclusion for women across the continent on the Unlocking Africa podcast
Hosts Olumide and Bankole discuss South Africa telco Telkom on the Afrobility podcast

INTERVIEWS/PROFILES

Meet the Investor: Johanna Raehalme, Finnfund
Meet the Executive: Lacina Koné, Director-General of the Smart Africa alliance
Meet the Executive: Alioune Ndiaye, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa (Shots fired at mobile money unicorn Wave)

🗣️ Community Corner

No news here as Q1 came to a close. But with less than 75% of the year left in 2022, I wish you all well. (As a reminder, feel free to ping me if you have any personal/professional news to share with the community.)

I’ll take advantage of the lack of community news this week to push something you may find useful: Magical — a free text expander that I found really valuable in Q1. It saves me from writing/re-writing the same text over and over in emails & elsewhere. Check it out, it may be a fit for your workflows too.

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LA FIN

Thanks for reading 🙌🏽 Send me your news, comments, questions, etc. via Whatsapp, Twitter DM, or email, and feel free to reach out if you just want to chat. 🙏🏽

Thanks also to our sponsor intellence for today’s Week in Review — click here to get started building your content flywheel and intelligent influence strategy.

— Emeka

Afridigest