SunFunder has made its first transaction in Mozambique into SolarWorks!, the country’s leading Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar home system and energy services provider. The $2m debt facility will allow them to directly impact 65,000 people with improved energy access while displacing at least 26 tonnes…
Visa with the help of Square and yelp has launched a global initiative – She’s Next, Empowered by Visa – to encourage female entrepreneurship across the world. “Starting and growing a business can be both incredibly rewarding and daunting. That is why…
Entrants in the latest Airbus BizLab #Africa4Future challenge for innovative African tech start-ups will present their proposals to experts, investors, the media and other stakeholders at an open public pitch day in Nairobi on 17 January 2019. #Africa4Future is a JV between Airbus’…
Nigeria’s digital content distribution startup has been accepted to Singularity University’s Global Startup Program to help entrepreneurs transform radical ideas into tangible impact on a global scale. The program aims to scale startups into global businesses. We want to inspire you to solve the world’s…
Digital lender Branch International has today announced its largest commercial paper issuance to date, raising Ksh500 million, following a Ksh350 million issuance in 2018 and a Ksh200 million issuance in 2017. All commercial paper issuances have been arranged by the Centum-owned advisory…
MEST Africa has announced the launch of applications for its second annual MEST Africa Challenge, a Pan-African pitch competition for scale-ups based in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa or Cote d’Ivoire who are ready to expand into new markets. This year’s finalists…
Lendable, Inc., a New York and Nairobi based technology-enabled funding provider to frontier market alternative lenders, or non-bank lenders in Mid December secured dual tranche 36 month note program, called Multi-Originator Segregated Portfolio 2, or “MOP2”, it’s second fundraise of secured pass-through…
Kampala-based off-grid solar company SolarNow has closed $9m in debt financing from SunFunder, Oikocredit and responsAbility. The $9m facility is SolarNow’s third structured asset finance instrument, known as SAFI, arranged by SunFunder. It will enable the company to deploy 17,500 new off-grid…
Villgro Kenya has invested $40,000 each into into Maisha Meds and Turaco, two companies working to improve health access for low income Kenyans. Maisha Meds is a software platform for ensuring that rural pharmacists and clinicians effectively purchase quality affordable medicines and…
Five young Senegalese entrepreneurs have been selected to receive six months of business incubation and $2,000 seed-funding to kick-start their business by the Senegal Start-Up Accelerator, run by Kosmos Innovation Center and Reach for Change. The Senegal Start-Up Accelerator is designed to…
Nairobi-based Africa Tech Ventures (ATV) has received $7.5m from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to boost operations of highly scalable companies across Africa according to a statement released by AfDB. The equity investment into ATV will be invested into early stage startups…
Utopixar, a Tunisian startup set to deliver a social collaboration tool for communities and organisations to facilitate participative decision-making and value transfer has received up to $100,000 from UNICEF to improve the lives of the country’s most vulnerable children. Utopixar was among…
Jamaa, a blockchain-based social network has launched to overcome the growing issue of fake news, while enabling all users to get paid just for using the network, with a “proof of brain” algorithm. According to Riziki Mbena, co-founder and General Manager of…
Sinapis Organisation has hit the 1,000 SMEs trained mark, and organised the 5th business pitching session where Lynda Njeru, the Cofounder of YZ-ME International, a sanitary products vending start up won a 1 million shillings capital injection during the Sinapis business pitching competition…
M-SCAN, a company that develops portable mobile ultrasound devices (Ultrasonic probes), was crowned as Sub-Saharan Africa’s Most Promising Startup at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018, held in Lagos, Nigeria on 11 December. Bettr, a virtual banking experience powered by the smartphone and data…
Secures “BB” Rating from Global Credit Rating Co. OneFi the parent firm that runs Paylater, a digital lending platform that specialises in consumer lending has been received ”BB” rating from Global Credit Rating Co. for its key financial and operational factors including risk management,…
Kobo360 Inc, an ‘Uber’ for trucks in Nigeria has raised a $6 million equity investment led by the IFC with participation from others including Silicon Valley investors WTI, YCombinator , and African institutional investors Cardinal Stone Partners, Chandaria Capital, and TLcom. The…
Pineapple has been accepted into The Hartford Insurtech Hub more than a year and a month after the peer-to-peer insurance tech startup raised R5.2m from Lireas Holdings, the strategic investment arm of Hannover-Re Group Africa. The Johannesburg-based startup will get to work with…
Little Thinking Minds, the Jordan-based regional ed-tech company, has announced $1.265m in Series A funding in a round led by Algebra Ventures with participation from Mindshift Capital and Al Turki Group. Little Thinking Minds is a leading education technology company that creates…
On the 1st of January 2019, at 12am, WAT, the Tony Elumelu Foundation will begin accepting applications for the fifth cycle of its Entrepreneurship Programme. 1,000 selected applicants will join the current 4,470 beneficiaries of the Programme. Since 2015, the TEF Entrepreneurship…
Glovo, a Barcelona based start-up has launched in Kenya, Ghana and Egypt in a move to transform the way consumer access to local goods, enabling anyone to get nearly any product delivered in less than 60 minutes. Presently in Spain, Italy, Portugal,…
Tiketi, a travel platform operating across Africa is sizing down on Kenya and South Africa with new local travel platforms to take advantage of the upcoming end of year holidays across the continent. The application provides in-depth knowledge of destinations, tours, activities…
KoloPay, Accounteer, Tradebuza & PowerCube have raised $25,000 each from Nigeria’s Itanna Accelerator, a Lagos-based accelerator and investment vehicle. Itanna, is backed by leading Nigerian corporate the Honeywell Group aand held its inaugural Demo Day, marking the end of its four-month innovation programme…
Cellulant, a Pan-African payments company providing a one-stop digital payments platform says it’s set to build an application programming interface (API) for Africa’s payments companies to solve Africa’s payment problems, grow eCommerce and improve cross-border remittances. “There is need for collaboration instead of…
Baobab+ and PayJoy have partnered to democratize access to devices and and content with high social impact, in Senegal, Ivory Coast and Madagascar. Baobab+, a subsidiary of the Baobab Group offers Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar kits in rural Senegal, Ivory Coast and…
Zonful Energy, a provider of clean energy solutions to off-grid households in Zimbabwe, has secured its first funding round from Energy Access Ventures (EAV) to strengthen its core team, diversify its product offerings, and drive growth in order to serve the…
Port It Global Inc, a mobile phone data-driven financial platform providing behavioral scoring and pay-over-time services to the unbanked at the point of sale (PoS), has closed a Seed round of funding led by Energy Access Ventures (EAV) to drive market…
Booking.com is urging African startups in sustainable tourism to apply to its third annual Booking Booster accelerator program for startups to help build technology-driven solutions to solve sustainable travel challenges. The €2 million fund is also highlighting four key areas of innovation being driven…
GMC coLABS, the gender lens investment portfolio of US based impact investor Gray Matters Capital (GMC), has invested into SonoCare, a Nigeria based health tech start-up providing services spanning the spectrum of women’s health such as on-demand mobile 3D/4D diagnostic imaging and cardiac…
Kenya’s BitPesa has raised $5m from Japanese insurance group Sompo Holdings in a move expected to revolutionize cross-border payments and insurance services globally. Sompo will use Bitpesa’s technology to extend its presence in the international remittance service market and use it for its insurance services. The…
