The 5 most popular stories on Africa Private Equity News this week
Here are summaries of the five most widely read stories this week on Africa Private Equity News.
1. Aruwa Capital invests in Nigerian financial services distribution platform
Aruwa Capital Management, an early-stage growth equity and gender lens fund investing in Nigeria and Ghana, has made an investment into CrowdForce, a financial services distribution platform facilitating delivery of banking services to last-mile customers in rural areas, serving the underserved and unbanked population in Nigeria.
Founded in 2015, the company’s founders initially sought to solve the problem that corporates faced of limited access to accurate market data for low income and underbanked communities through their data analytics platform called MobileForms. However, in the process of collecting last-mile data, the company realised the lack of financial services in rural and hard-to-reach areas. In Africa, more than 529 million adults are financially excluded and almost 10% of these adults reside in Nigeria where 95% of retail transactions are still conducted in cash. A 2020 GSMA study also showed that for every group of 100,000 adults in Africa, there are only six banks, 13 ATMs and 340 mobile money agents, highlighting the lack of access to financial services.
2. Buy-now-pay-later company backed by Cauris, Lateral Frontiers, Axian, others
Lipa Later, a buy-now-pay-later company operating in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, has raised $12 million from a consortium of investors.
The funding, which is a mix of equity and debt, will help Lipa Later expand within its current markets and into new markets such as Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.
The company’s recent round of funding attracted backing from Cauris Finance, Lateral Frontiers VC, GreenHouse Capital, SOSV IV LLC, Sayani Investments and Axian Financial Services.
3. Ajim Capital launches $10m fund for African companies in the tech space
Ajim Capital has launched a $10 million fund to invest in African tech start-ups.
The fund will provide cheques of $25,000 to $150,000 to pre-seed to seed tech-enabled companies across the continent. Ajim Capital is looking for start-ups that fit its established criteria – potential for rapid growth and fast adoption. The firm is interested in companies that can provide excellent returns to investors and that fill significant economic and infrastructure gaps for consumers and enterprises across sub-Saharan Africa.
4. FinDev Canada backs African energy fund
FinDev Canada and its 2X Canada facility announced a participation of up to $13 million in the Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF), which offers catalytic financing and technical assistance to early and growth-stage companies that increase access to clean, safe, dependable, and affordable energy for off-grid households and businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. The EEGF was created in 2019 by Shell Foundation, co-funded with UK aid from the UK government, and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. The use of blended finance will allow EEGF to unlock additional capital, a greater challenge during the Covid-19 crisis, and further its positive impact in improving access to energy and advancing women’s economic empowerment.
5. African e-commerce platform secures $6.2m funding
Afrikrea, the e-commerce platform for “all things made of Africa”, has announced the successful completion of a $6.2 million pre-series A round led by Investisseurs & Partenaires and the rebrand to ANKA, its all-in-one solution for selling anywhere, shipping globally and receiving payments quickly. The new investment includes participation from Alibaba’s executive vice chairman Joe Tsai, BESTSELLER Foundation, VestedWorld, Enigmo, Groupe Prunay and Rising Tide Africa. They join existing investors SAVIU Ventures (which is also participating in the round), Lofty Inc, Kepple Africa, Consonance, id4 Ventures and Thierry Petit. The additional funding brings the company’s total investment to date to $8.1 million since being founded in 2016.
The new capital raised will be deployed to build out the mobile infrastructure of ANKA’s e-commerce SaaS, allowing effortless global access for its retailers, as well as investing in further product development. Funding will also be used to boost talent acquisition across its product, sales and finance teams, while looking to hire more remote developers.
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