The Afridigest Week in Review is a must-read weekly recap for Africa-focused founders, executives, and investors.

Welcome back, friends! The most clicked link last week was the list of pre-seed & seed funds in Africa from Afropitchprep. And if you missed yesterday’s Fintech Review, it’s available here. Also, over the weekend, we published the essay 'How Africa’s super app landscape is evolving' on Afridigest.com. One more thing: an essay may hit your inbox before Saturday as I’ll likely be moving this weekend.

📌 Hi folks. Your humble author doesn’t ask for much. Maybe the occasional request for a social media follow or share. Or a request to show your support with a paid subscription. Or the rare survey. But that’s pretty much it. But today, if you could go ahead and download Yux’s report on the State of User Research in Africa, it’d be much appreciated — they’re a solid team. 🤝🏽

If you’re new, welcome 🙌🏽 — you're among thousands of readers who receive this Week in Review on Mondays, the Fintech Review on Sundays generally, and (for those who've opted in) the French-language Revue de la Semaine on Wednesdays (which is on a temporary hiatus right now). And from time to time, an original essay/article goes out on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive.

[We often link to older editions of this newsletter, but if you’re not a paying subscriber, you won't have access to the historical archive. Remember to upgrade your subscription or start a trial for full access.]

💡 “The words of the elders become sweet someday.” — Chichewa proverb

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A MESSAGE FROM YUX

The flagship report on user research in Africa is here.

YUX, the pan-African research and design company behind the market research platform LOOKA, just published its flagship study on the state of User Research in Africa.

This is one of the first analyses of Africa’s UX design industry, looking at salaries, education, challenges, tools, and ethical considerations of practitioners.

With this report, YUX brings light to the fast-growing African UX industry and gives practical insights on how we can build digital products tailored to our needs and culture. The results are based on interviews with designers, researchers, and industry leaders from 23 African countries.

Download the report now

YUX experts will also discuss the results live this Wednesday, January 25th — don’t miss it, register here!

Week 3 2023: January 15-21

📰 Deal of the Week

🇿🇦 Carry1st, a South African mobile gaming developer/licensor/publisher and monetization-as-a-service platform, raised a $27M pre-Series B led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Konvoy Ventures, TTV Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Frontiers VC, and Kepple Ventures.

About Carry1st: Founded in 2018, Carry1st not only developer, licenses, & publishes mobile games, it also offers an online marketplace (Carry1st Shop) that allows users to purchase virtual goods & digital content with local currency, and offers an embedded finance platform (Pay1st) that’s also open to third party publishers. ~~Agrifintech~~ Gamingfintech? I guess there’s already GameFi.

The company, which handles user acquisition, operations, community management, and monetization for its partners, has now raised $53M over three announced rounds, and says it’s revenue has 10X’d y/y. It now has ~75 employees across 25 countries, with the majority in Africa.

Key personalities:

Cordel Robbin-Coker, Co-Founder & CEO, Carry1st
Lucy Hoffman, Co-Founder & COO
Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu, Co-Founder & CTO
Jens Hilgers, Founding General Partner, Bitkraft Ventures
Jon Lai, Games General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Jackson Vaughan, Co-Founder, Konvoy Ventures

In the founders’ words: “[Monetization-as-a-service is exciting because] local players are really hungry for great international content [and] global companies are paying attention…with some of the best brands now focused on the region… But on the other side, … the team has been really energized around our ability now to develop and launch our own titles from the region to a global audience.” — Cordel Robbin-Coker

In the investor’s words: “Africa is home to the largest population of young people in the world, and this upcoming generation will grow up digitally native with videogames as their primary entertainment preference.” — Jens Hilgers

“Carry1st is building financial infrastructure to connect the various payment systems across Africa and open up the market to game studios and other publishers that want to release games in the region. Carry1st is solving for the biggest bottlenecks in the region: accessibility and distribution.” — Jackson Vaughan

Fun fact: The mobile game ‘The President’ (Android, iOS), which had quite a bit of buzz last year, came out of a gaming accelerator Carry1st launched with a partner studio.

🔦 Deals

FUNDRAISES ACROSS THE CONTINENT

🇿🇦 Flow, a South African proptech platform automating social media advertising for real estate agencies, developers, and portals, raised a $4.5M pre-Series A led by Futuregrowth Asset Management ($2M), with participation from Endeavor Harvest Fund, Kalon Venture Partners, Vunani Fintech Fund, Buffet Investments, and others.
🇰🇪 Kwara, a Kenyan neobank-cum-software provider for credit unions, raised a $3M seed extension from DOB Equity, Globivest, One Day Yes, Base Capital, and others. (The fundraising announcement also included the acquisition of IRNET which Afridigest covered last week.)
🇲🇦 Cathedis, a Moroccan delivery & logistics platform, raised a ~$735K (MDH 7.5M) pre-series A from Afrimobility and CDG Invest.

ADJACENT DEALS

Tabby, an Emirati BNPL platform focused on the MENA region, raised a $58M Series C at a $660M valuation led by Sequoia Capital India and STV, with participation from PayPal Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst. A good chunk of the proceeds will be directed towards scaling its operations in Egypt.

M&A

Egyptian e-sports platform GBarena acquired Tunisian gaming startup Galactech for $15M (in the form of a share swap). The acquisition will “creat[e] a regional powerhouse in the thriving gaming industry.”
Nigerian mobility-focused software provider & driver training platform DriveMe acquired Nigerian valet service provider Go!TwentySix for an undisclosed amount. “[The acquisition will increase DriveMe’s business value, broaden its visibility, and enhance its B2B strategy.”

INVESTOR ACTIVITY

Tokyo’s Inclusion Japan (ICJ) has partnered with Ethiopia’s Kazana Fund to allocate up to $100M to Ethiopian startups. ICJ announced its investment in Gebeya in Week 2 2023.

🔥🪑 In the hot seat with Accion Venture Lab's Jasiel Martin-Odoom

Thanks, Jasiel! Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

📚 Quick hits

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE

Distribution as innovation — Good read from Kindred Ventures’ Kanyi Maqubela on network effects, platforms, and ecosystems as ‘distribution innovations.’ “Distribution is … not just what you do after you invent. Often, it is the source of invention itself.” Fun fact: Kanyi’s father, then-Dean of Faculty at Phillips Academy, was my first boss.
Internet marketplaces in India — Long time Afridigest readers probably know I’m a proponent of looking to the East for inspiration. Here’s a highly recommended read in that vein from Bessemer: “India represents a massive, trillion dollar digital opportunity around Internet led consumption in this coming decade.”
Riding waves — Angel investor pens a good piece describing market selection as wave hunting: “Most successful startups rode one or multiple waves to unicorn glory.” It reminds me of an NFX piece I really enjoyed last year, ‘Find the fast moving water.’

AFRIDIGEST ARTICLES

How Africa’s super app landscape is evolving — A primer on the key super app players across Africa and the market pulls & pushes driving the continent’s super app trend.
Afridigest 🧠💡🌍🚀📨 @AfridigestHQ
💡 Did you know there are four main categories of super apps in Africa? We just published a primer on the key super app players across Africa and what's driving the continent’s super app trend Read it here → How Africa's super app landscape is evolving: afridigest.com/africas-super-…
1:16 PM ∙ Jan 21, 2023

Pair with: Are super apps the future of mobile-first Africa? (video)

PUBLIC BOOKMARKING

My 8 best techniques for evaluating character — From . I don't agree with everything in the piece, but I agree with a lot of it. What do you think, dear reader? “Perhaps the character you need to assess is your own.”

👀 Visual of the Week

Here’s a look at the 80+ companies digitizing health product distribution in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana:

Source: Innovations in digitizing distribution of health products 2022. Salient.

“Innovators in health product distribution are enabling the digitized distribution of essential medicines to consumers and providers alike through cost-effective, technology-enabled business models.”

💡 Executive Insights: Why look at Francophone Africa?

🧐 Read the full post on our LinkedIn page and connect with Nelly here.

Follow Afridigest on LinkedIn

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

NEWS

Some telco news in Ghana: MTN Ghana hit with bill of $773M for back taxes; Vodafone granted approval to sell its 70% stake in Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Group
Africa’s economic growth to outpace global forecast in 2023-2024, according to the AfDB
Andile Ngcaba’s ~$30M discrimination lawsuit against Dimension Data looks set to finally go ahead this year.

ESSAYS & OP-EDS

Andrew Garza, Co-founder & COO of healthtech platform Lifestores, writes ‘Potential challenges and opportunities for Nigerian healthtech in 2023’
Deepankar Rustagi, Co-founder & CEO of B2B e-commerce platform OmniBiz writes ‘Rethinking metrics in B2B e-commerce’
African Scalecraft’s Scott Walker & Belinda Bowling write ‘Africa needs gazelles, not unicorns’

OTHER ARTICLES

OpenAI used Kenyan workers on less than $2 per hour to make ChatGPT less toxic (TIME)
In Africa, FTX posed as haven from tumbling currencies, inflation (Wall Street Journal $)
How to create a city (FT - $)
How DER became a one-stop shop for startups in Senegal (TechCabal)
Inside SweepSouth’s decision to close its Nigerian and Kenyan businesses (TechCabal)

PROFILES/INTERVIEWS

Nicole Dunn, COO of South African fintech Revio
Gil Sperling, Co-Founder & CEO of South African proptech Flow
Israel Bimpe, CEO of Rwandan govtech platform Irembo (video)
Mitchan Adams, Founder & CEO of South African venture builder Aions Creative Technology
Sacha Haider, Partner, Global Ventures
Idris Ayodeji Bello, Founding Partner & Portfolio Manager, LoftyInc Capital
Iyin Aboyeji, Founder & General Partner, Future Africa (podcast)

🐤 Tweet of the Week

Here’s a quick quiz for you. And special kudos if you can identify No. 9. 🙃
[Correct answers here.]

Afridigest 🧠💡🌍🚀📨 @AfridigestHQ

🚨 #AfricaTech quiz time! Can you identify these 15 Nigerian fintechs based on the emojis below? 🤔 You'll have to be creative 💡 But the first one to get all 15 wins a complimentary subscription to afridigest.substack.com — your intelligent guide to Africa's tech ecosystem 🤗

Follow AfridigestHQ on Twitter

Bonus tweets: A thread on the current market environment from Victor Asemota, Idris Bello shares a thought on investor updates, and Dr. Ikpeme Neto shares some advice.

🗣️ Community Corner and Opportunities (feel free to send yours in)

🎰 OPPORTUNITIES

African greentech/cleantech/climatetech/etc startups with solutions that “repair and regenerate the planet” are invited to apply for the Earthshot Prize before January 27th. Five winners will receive a £1,000,000 grant. 2023 focus areas here (PDF).
Pre-seed and seed stage startups in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco that create positive impact through social and environmental breakthroughs are invited to apply to the 2023 Aviram Awards before January 30th. First place prize is $500,000.
African cleantech & climatetech startups are invited to apply to the Ashden awards — particularly the Ashden award for integrated energy Africa — before March 8th. Win a a prize of up to £25,000.
Applications are open until February 15th for the 2023 Westerwelle Young Founders Program.

💼 HIRING

Early-stage VC firm Microtraction is hiring an Investment Analyst.
Klasha is hiring a Lagos-based Senior Product Manager (Mobile).
Carry1st is hiring a New York-based VP of Product, Platform.

🙊 The last word

WHAT I’M THINKING ABOUT

What’s on my mind? The next Afridigest event :) — planning is underway now, and it’ll likely be around this time next month.

Details to follow, but we’re changing up the format a bit to add a live fireside chat/Q&A with a super interesting founder as well. If you’re interested in attending, kindly fill out this form.

► We’re also actively looking for a few good sponsors for the event — kindly reach out or share leads 🙏🏽 The chat/Q&A will be recorded and shared widely.

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