Parent Company Of Ethiopia’s Ride-hailing Service, ZayRide, Secures Undisclosed Funding
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Hey there! The weekend is finally upon us! Welcome to today’s edition of TC Daily. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe so you can get the daily digest.
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| Egypt’s bus-sharing startup, Swvl, is expanding to Kenya. Last year, Swvl raised over $38 million in two funding rounds and announced plans to expand to 10 cities outside Egypt in 2019 beginning with Manila. Their launch in Kenya may not be unrelated with Uber’s announcement in November, 2018, that it would expand its minibus service to Nairobi if product tests in Egypt and Mexico were successful. |
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| Zaytech, proprietor of Ethiopia’s ride-hailing service, ZayRide, has “successfully and significantly” raised equity capital from local and international investors. The investors and amount secured is unknown. This is Zaytech’s second known round of funding. In 2017, they reportedly raised funding below $200K. |
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| Fuliza, Safaricom’s overdraft platform, says it issued KES 1.5 billion to more than a million users in the first week of its launch. Fuliza allows M-PESA users with insufficient funds in their wallets take care of their bills and send cash. It’s not a loan product and attracts a 1% access fee and maintenance charges on the outstanding balance. |
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| Our Health-tech Town Hall and public launch of our Nigerian Health-tech Industry Report will now take place on Friday, January 25, 2019. The time extension will enable us to provide a strong and insightful platform to discuss the sector’s current state, progress so far and its future with key stakeholders in attendance. Please sign up here so we can notify you when registration goes live in a few days. |
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| Online grocery store Gloo.ng, announced this week that it was closing its operations in Nigeria. It isn’t the first e-commerce site to suffer such fate. Quartz Africa, in this article, takes a look at the challenges facing the sector and what a winning e-commerce model (if there’s any) might begin to look like in Nigeria. |
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| On the other hand, an iAfrikan article, where a number of things are mentioned with no intention of being discussed, has sparked some reaction on Twitter. One of the reasons it hasn’t gone down well with some readers is the article’s claim that the current challenges of the e-commerce sector in Nigeria is as a result of inaccurate funding reports from tech-focused media. |
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| Internet access in Zimbabwe was cut off and later restored on Wednesday, January 16. However, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter remain inaccessible. Here’s how Zimbabwean Telcos are responding to the situation. |
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| Digital money transfer service WorldRemit has launched its low-cost digital money transfer service in South Africa. Customers can now make digital money transfers to 145 countries worldwide, including Zimbabwe and Mozambique. |
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| Are you a well-established, post-revenue startup operating in Kenya, Ghana or Nigeria? Social entrepreneurship network, Ashoka and pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim, have launched an 11-month accelerator program, Making More Health. They want your applications. Follow this link to apply; deadline is February 15. |
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All Done.
We’ll see you tomorrow.
– Kay.
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