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Afridigest Week in Review: 3 million more for Talk360
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Afridigest Week in Review: 3 million more for Talk360

+Thanks for a successful Afridigest Lagos Meetup +212 Founders S22 batch +Algebra Ventures to the moon +SNBL +Household food spending +Lots of media mentions about funding in Africa +More

Emeka Ajene's avatar
Emeka Ajene
Oct 10, 2022
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Afridigest Week in Review: 3 million more for Talk360
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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 from last week was 'Offline agent networks are driving Africa’s digital development.' And if you missed yesterday’s Fintech Review, click here. (Thanks to readers who called attention to the broken link to Carbon’s P&L statement, it’s been fixed in the web version and is available here.)
📌 Thanks to everyone who took the time out of their schedule to come out to the first Afridigest meetup in Lagos! I don’t take it for granted and I really enjoyed meeting you all. So much so that I’m already looking forward to the next one. 🙏🏽 🙏🏽 🙏🏽 More on this at the end of this newsletter.
If you’re new, welcome 🙌🏽 — you're among thousands of readers who receive this Week in Review on Mondays, the Fintech Review on Sundays, and (for those who've opted in) the French-language Revue de la Semaine on Wednesdays. And from time to time, an original essay/article goes out on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive.
» Click here to read this email in your browser.

Week 40 2022: October 2-8

📰 Deal of the Week

🇿🇦 Talk360, a South African/Dutch international calling platform, raised $3M in the second close of its seed round from HAVAÍC, Allan Gray E2 Ventures (AGEV), Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor, and others. This takes the total amount raised in the seed round to $7M.

About Talk360: Talk360 enables users to make international & local calls via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) at lower calling rates than traditional telcos. Unlike WhatsApp and other services, however, only the caller needs the Talk360 app. The recipient receives the call as usual and doesn’t need an app, data, or even a smartphone.

The app has active users in over 170 countries, with particularly strong traction in South Africa and Zimbabwe. According to Talk360, the company has experienced 167% growth in customers and 130% growth in revenues since last year and has connected 2.3 million people worldwide so far this year.

Notably, the company distributes vouchers for call credit through a last-mile agent network and also plans to launch a pan-African payments platform in 2023.

Key personalities:

  • Hans Osnabrugge, Co-Founder & Group CEO

  • Dean Hiine, Co-Founder and Managing Director for Africa

  • Jorne Schamp, Co-Founder & CPMO

  • Ian Lessem, Managing Partner, HAVAÍC

In the Founder’s words: “Our mission is to bridge distance and connect lives by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use digital services, delivered in a localized manner to all communities… But we’re not just solving socio-economic issues. We’re also offering micro-entrepreneurship and income-generating opportunities to our growing network of agents across the country.” — Dean Hiine

In the Investor’s words: “We invested more into Talk360 based on its strong progress in the South African market to date, as well as its potential in the rest of Africa. Since our first investment, the company has shown spectacular growth, and a genuine ability to crack the challenge of distribution in Africa.” — Ian Lessem

Twitter avatar for @eajene
Eᴍᴇᴋᴀ Aᴊᴇɴᴇ ✍🏽 @eajene
Had a really interesting convo earlier this week w/ Hans Osnabrugge, co-founder of South Africa's Talk360 It's a pretty unique startup w/ differentiated thinking around agents & distribution It's going to be very exciting to watch them expand across Africa + move into fintech
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3:12 PM ∙ Oct 7, 2022

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