Last week’s African startup industries scenes featured three funding rounds and one acquisition. South African HealthTech Startup, Axmed raised $2 million in seed funding to improve pharmaceutical supply chains. Egyptian B2B fintech, Swypex, also secured $4 million in seed funding. At the same time, Nigerian identity solutions provider, Seamfix obtained $4.5 million to fuel its expansion efforts.
Funding
Axmed
Funding round: Seed ($2 million)
Investors: Founderful Ventures
Founded: 2023
Founders: Felix Ohnmacht, Sofía Radley-Searle, Emmanuel Akpakwu
Products: Axmed operates a B2B marketplace connecting pharmaceutical manufacturers with health services providers. The company is set to roll out a solution that aggregates demand from buyers, enabling them to purchase pharmaceutical products directly from manufacturers at lower costs.
What Next?: The company aims to fix inefficiencies in the pharmaceutical supply chains while reducing shortages and the proliferation of counterfeit drugs. The newly acquired funding will be invested into achieving these objectives.
Swypex
Funding round: Seed ($4 million)
Investors: Accel, Foundation Ventures, The Raba Partnership
Founded: 2022, Egypt
Founders: Ahmad Mokhtar, Tarek Mokhtar, Sasan Hezarkhani
Products: Swypex operates a B2B platform that provides all-in-one financial management services for client companies. These include payment consolidation, invoice management, and many more. Swypex’s offerings enable businesses to automate their financial workflows and make payments more easily.
What Next?: Following the funding round, Swypex will commence full operations in the Egyptian market
Seamfix
Funding round: $4.5 million
Investors: Alitheia IDF
Founded: Nigeria
Founders: Chimezie Emewulu and Chibuzor Onwurah
Products: Seamfix provides identity creation, verification, and management solutions for corporations and government agencies. The company’s solution is being used in organizations such as Veremark, NIMC, and several telcos
What Next?: The funding will enable the company to expand its solution to five other African countries including Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ugandan, and South Africa.
Acquisitions
Lesaka Acquires South Africa Adumo
South African Fintech Lesaka, company recently announced that it’s acquiring payment solutions provider Adumo for approximately $86.4 Million (R1.6 billion) in cash and issuance shares. The cash part of the deal will see Adumo receive $12.5M while Adumo’s shareholders will receive 17,279,803 shares of Lesaka’s common stock for the equity part of the deal.
Lesaka is a financial services provider that uses proprietary banking technology to drive financial inclusion for underserved communities and merchants. It offers banking, lending, and insurance products to consumers. The company is currently listed on NASDAQ and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Similarly, Adumo is a payment processor providing integrated payment services, reconciliation services, and card acquisition for merchants in South Africa.
The new acquisition comes just months after Lesaka acquired Data analytics and merchant services company, Touchsides. Meanwhile, Adumo’s full integration with Lesaka is still pending shareholder and regulatory approval which should be done in the third quarter. This deal will see Lesaka’s ecosystem expand across 5 countries as Adumo’s team and technology will be integrated into Lesaka’s existing stack
Opportunities
D-Prize Global Competition 2024 for Entrepreneurs
BRIDGE-in Agriculture Pitch Competition
