This week was a little slow for funding in the African startup ecosystem, with only six deals recorded throughout the week. We did, however, record a significant raise in Solarise Africa’s debt financing deal.
Let’s get right into the details.
Pre-Seed
Badili, a smartphone recommerce startup based in Kenya, has received $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from The Venture Catalysts, V&R Africa, Grenfell holdings, SOSV, and some angel investors from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and India.
Founded in 2021 by Rishabh Lawania and Keshu Dubey, Badili is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell used and refurbished phones. The funds will be used to expand the startup’s current operations in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
Seed
Orda, a Nigerian food tech platform, has secured a $3.4 million seed investment from Quona Capital and FinTech Collective. LoftyInc Capital, Enza Capital, Norrsken Foundation, Outside VC and Far Out Ventures also participated in the round.
Founded in 2022 by Guy Futi, Fikayo Akinwale, Mark Edomwande, Kunle Ogungbamila and Namir El-Khouri, Orda’s solution enables restaurants to manage dine-in orders as well as sales from other channels with little to no internet access.
Orda intends to expand vertically as it improves its payments, credit, and lending solutions, allowing customers to extract even more value from their businesses with the funds it recently raised.
Series A
Ejara, a Cameroonian fintech company, has raised $8 million in Series A funding in a round led by Anthemis and Dragonfly Capital. Other participating investors include Mercy Corps Ventures, Coinshares Ventures, Lateral Capital, Circle Ventures, Moonstake, Emurgo, Hashkey Group and BPI France.
Founded in 2020 by Nelly Chatue-Diop and Baptiste Andrieux, Ejara provides an investment app that allows users to purchase cryptocurrency and save it in decentralized wallets. Instead of only providing custodial wallets to users, they can create non-custodial wallets to own and store their keys.
Ejara hopes to use this new funding to reach more customers in Francophone Africa and expand cryptocurrency activity in the region.
Others
Solarise Africa, a Mauritius-based energy leasing firm, has raised $33.4 million in debt financing. The Facility for Energy Inclusion (FEI) led the round, which will provide $21.4 million. Oikocredit and Lion’s Head’s AfricaGoGreen Fund also contributed $7 million and $5 million, respectively, to the round.
Founded by Patrik Huber, Jan Albert Valk and Sakkie van Wijk, Solarise provides African businesses with decentralized energy solutions as well as one-of-a-kind full-service solutions for designing, building, financing, and managing renewable energy installations.
The new funds will be used to expand the company’s portfolio in Kenya and other African countries.
CyberTalents, an Egypt-based cybersecurity platform, has won a $25,000 prize in the Cyberseed Start-Up Global Competition, organised by the Black Hat conference held in Riyadh.
Founded in 2016 by Moataz Salah, CyberTalents empowers cybersecurity talent by providing them with training, connecting them with global opportunities and assisting them to get jobs.
CyberTalents intends to use the prize money to launch more projects to improve its program and facilitate more partnerships in order to build the next generation of a better cybersecurity future.
Owoafara Inc, a Nigerian fintech start-up, has received an undisclosed amount in investment funding from ShEquity, an Africa-wide impact investment firm.
Founded in 2019 by Tale Alimi, Owoafara Inc offers a portfolio-managed platform that assists small businesses in obtaining financing from individual and corporate investors.
Venture Funds
4Di Capital, a South African early-stage venture capital firm, has announced the second closing of its new US$25 million seed fund, with an undisclosed contribution from Mauritian conglomerate IBL Group through its investment vehicle, IBL Link Investments Ltd. The seed fund was established in collaboration with DotExe Ventures in Mauritius.
500 Global, a venture capital firm based in the United States, is planning to open an office in Egypt and has recently partnered with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) to launch a number of investment and startup-focused support programs.
The venture capital firm has been investing in Egypt for over a decade and has supported over 60 Egyptian startups, including MaxAB, Homzmart, and Breadfast.
AU-Startups Highlights
More job losses for Nigerians as Safeboda exits Nigeria
86 start-up founders graduate from Alibaba programme
$200m growth fund launched for investment vehicles
Appzone rebrands to “Zone”, becomes Africa’s first Layer-1 Blockchain Network
SafeBoda retreats from Nigeria to “double down on profitability” in Uganda
Kenya wants to tax crypto transactions
Events, Opportunities and Jobs
And that’s all for this week. Remember to share this newsletter issue with your friends and colleagues at work, so they don’t miss out on the happenings in the African startup ecosystem.
