Ecosystem Insider

Issue #127: Sukhiba Secures Additional $1.5M Seed Funding, Ampersand Raises $2M, While Arise Invests $7.5M in South-African Omnisient

September 3, 2024

Last week’s funding activities in the African ecosystem featured three companies securing equity and four obtaining grants from ANDE and IKEA. Sukhiba raised a $1.5 Million seed extension, bringing its total seed funding to $3 Million. Similarly, the logistics and EV start-up Ampersand also secured $2 Million, while Arise invested $7.5 Million in Omnisient.

Funding

Sukhiba

Funding round: Seed Extension ($1.5 Million)

Investors: EQ2 Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, Musha Ventures, Quona Capital, and CRE Ventures,

Founded: 2020, Kenya

Founders: Ananth Raj Gudipati and Abhinav Reddy

Products: Sukhiba offers a B2B conversational commerce tool that enables businesses to conduct transactions, manage orders, and engage with customers directly via WhatsApp

What Next?: Fuelled by the funding, Sukhiba Connect intends to expand its offering beyond Kenya by capitalizing on the burgeoning popularity of WhatsApp in Africa, especially in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria

Ampersand

Funding round: $2 Million

Investors: AHL Venture Partners, Everstrong Capital, and Beyond Capital Ventures.

Founded: 2016, Rwanda

Founders: Josh Whale, Alp Tilev

Products: Ampersand develops electric vehicles and electric fueling solutions, including electric bikes, cars and battery swap stations.

What Next?: Fuelled by the funding, the company is set to continue its expansion efforts across East Africa.

Omnisient

Funding round: ($7.5 Million)

Investors: Arise

Founded: 2019, South Africa

Founders: Jon Jacobson and Anton Grutzmacher

Products: Omniscient operates a privacy-enhancing technology and data collaboration platform which provides a controlled and secure environment for data analysis.

What Next?: Omniscient plans to channel the investment into its expansion efforts into the wider African, UK, US, and Middle Eastern markets.

Other Fundings

ANDE & IKEA Foundation Provides $700k Grants for Four ESOs in Kenya

Four Kenyan Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESO) benefited from a 700k grant award sponsored by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) & IKEA Foundation.

The grant funding comes from the Waste & Circularity Investment Innovation Fund, a key part of the Access to Green Finance Project. Alongside two Indian companies, the four Kenyan beneficiaries include;

Circle Innovation and KOIS: They’re an impact-oriented company promoting sustainable growth in East Africa. The company is set to launch the “Circularity LaunchPad,” an innovative platform for investors to design finance mechanisms and systems for their portfolios. It will also provide support for circularity and waste SGBs to build relevant traction and attract investments.

Smart Regional Consultants (SRC) & Kenya Climate Ventures (KCV): They provide investment funding to assist early and growth-stage companies with climate-impact solutions in Kenya. With the grant funding, they’re set to run a comprehensive program to help small and growing businesses in the waste and circulatory sector prepare for investment and connect them to investors.

Agri Frontier: They’re an agribusiness investment company that seeks out and supports innovative agri-tech solutions with funding. They intend to channel the new grant funding into an 18-month program to improve investment readiness among waste and circulatory SBGs in Kenya.

Sote Hub: Sote Hub aims to expose youths and MSMEs in rural Kenya to career and business growth opportunities. With the new funding, the company intends to revolutinonize marine plastic waste management in coastal Kenya, leveraging digital technology to create a blueprint for other communities.