The past week brought a flurry of activity within the African startup ecosystem, marked by nearly ten funding agreements. The mobility sector took the spotlight with Moove securing a substantial $76 million in a blend of equity and debt, complemented by Spiro’s $60 million debt financing. Adding to the momentum, Saviu Ventures stood out by spearheading two pre-seed funding rounds in Ivory Coast.
Funding
Tajiri
Funding round: Pre-Seed ($250,000)
Investors: Saviu Ventures
Founded: 2023, Ivory Coast
Founders: Alex Degny, Serge Theophile Kokoua
Product: Tajiri enables restaurant owners and staff to efficiently track sales and monitor essential business data, streamlining daily operations and improving decision-making processes.
What next?: The injected capital will be pivotal in advancing Tajiri’s vision, primarily focusing on enhancing the mobile application, strengthening the sales team, and improving the restaurant acquisition strategy.
Djoli
Funding round: Pre-Seed ($250,000)
Investors: Saviu Ventures
Founded: 2023, Ivory Coast
Founders: Thomas Giannetti, Stane Blegbo
Product: Djoli streamlines the supply chain, minimizing intermediaries between producers and restaurateurs, ensuring prompt, high-quality produce delivery at competitive prices, benefiting all stakeholders.
What next?: The funding will empower Djoli to acquire new customers, expand geographically, develop technology, and recruit top talent.
Talents Arena
Funding round: Pre-Seed ($750,000)
Investors: UI Investments and others
Founded: 2019, Egypt
Founders: Aya Elgebeely
Product: Talents Arena employs an AI-driven hiring engine that fully automates the recruitment life cycle, disrupting traditional practices by expediting time-to-hire, enhancing job matching, and empowering organizations to optimize their hiring processes and meet KPIs.
What next?: The new funds will drive the company’s expansion into Saudi Arabia and the GCC region.
Veggie Victory
Funding round: Seed (Unknown)
Investors: Value Create Inc.
Founded: 2013, Nigeria
Founders: Hakeem Adeyanju, Bola Adeyanju
Product: VeggieVictory stands as Nigeria’s pioneering plant-based food tech company, offering plant-based meats and meals to promote a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.
What next?: With this investment, the startup seeks to diversify its product range and expand its footprint not only in Nigeria but also across multiple African countries.
Buguard
Funding round: Seed ($500,000)
Investors: A15 (Lead)
Founded: 2021, Egypt
Founders: Youssef Mohamed
Product: Buguard provides offensive security services, such as penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, phishing simulation, compromise assessment, threat intelligence, and red teaming. It also monitors the dark web, hacking forums, underground channels, and private clouds to identify and mitigate breaches across various platforms.
What next?: The investment aims to support Buguard’s expansion in the GCC region and enhance its offensive security services against dark web cyber attacks.
Spiro
Funding round: Debt ($60M)
Investors: Société Générale, GuarantCo
Founded: 2019, Benin
Product: Spiro serves as a sustainable transportation provider in Africa, offering “mobility as a service” through innovative systems that enhance earning potential via productive asset ownership.
What next?: The funding is expected to support the acquisition of more electric motorcycles via a structured payment approach, facilitating the entry of new entrepreneurs into this mobility-focused venture.
Moove Africa
Funding round: Mix of equity & debt ($76 million)
Investors: Mubadala Investment Company, BlackRock
Founded: 2019, Nigeria
Founders: Jide Odunsi, Ladi Delano
Product: Moove integrates its innovative credit-scoring technology into ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, enabling mobility entrepreneurs to access personalized performance and revenue insights for loan underwriting. Their approach involves providing loans to customers through vehicle sales and financing up to 95 percent of the purchase within just five days of enrollment.
What next?: The funding will support their mission to create a leading tech-driven financial services platform for mobility entrepreneurs and enhance their global presence.
FinMeUp
Funding round: Undisclosed
Investors: SAAD, Blu Sky Investments
Founded: 2019, South Africa
Founders: Higgo Biljon
Product: FinMeUp provides a diverse array of solutions, including education, financial advice, investment, insurance, and credit services. Operating as a community-oriented platform, the startup focuses on creating a collaborative space for individuals to learn, interact, and develop collectively.
What next?: A notable portion of the funding will be directed towards the creation and introduction of innovative products, including the upcoming SnapMillion and Snap200 offerings.
Luxury Time
Funding round: Undisclosed
Investors: Fledge Capital
Founded: 2009, South Africa
Founders: Adriaan Rootman
Product: Luxury Time is an e-commerce platform specializing in the sale of premium pre-owned authentic watches and accessories. The company is renowned for its offerings of pre-owned watches from esteemed brands like Rolex, Omega, and Cartier.
What next?: The company aims to broaden its inventory, strengthen its online presence, and enhance its customer service capabilities.
Others
DRC-based fintech emerges as third selected African startup in YC S23 batch
Kenyan logistics startup shuts down operations
Opportunities
Building in the contech space? Apply for Flat6Labs’ Makers accelerator program before Aug 17
Raised less than $250K in total? Apply for the Open Startup Grow investment readiness program
