Helios Investment Partners is planning a US$1.25 billion pan-African fund
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She Leads Africa is building Africa’s largest female-focused media company. They’ve just closed a seed round and are hiring. Click here for more details: http://bit.ly/slay-cabal.
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Egyptian video analytics startup, Mintrics, is currently raising $500,000 for expansion into the United States. The startup’s market is in North America and it has offices in Cairo and Dubai. It was selected for the second cohort of Google’s LaunchPad Accelerator Africa program and was recently accepted into the Blue Startups accelerator program. Mintrics helps video publishers understand how their content is performing and its clients include Youtube and Discovery International.
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Abidjan/Dakar based innovation platform, Kinaya Ventures, has launched a new accelerator fund called Spring Fellowship. The fund which is supported by corporate sponsors including Nestle will identify startups across Africa to join its accelerator programme through a six-country tour which begins in August in Abidjan. The programme is targeting startups in the agri-tech, food tech, ad-tech, marketing tech and retail tech sectors. Learn more here and apply here.
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| The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has launched a new drone delivery service. Born out of a desire to serve people in rural communities, the service is currently undergoing trial runs and will be rolled out across the country once the SANBS secures the required license. SANBS was founded in 2001 from a merger of seven blood centers. |
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| Helios Investment Partners is planning a US$1.25 billion pan-African fund according to a report by Bloomberg. The London-based private equity firm could start the fund this year and is reportedly in talks with asset managers and development agencies. Some of Helios’ portfolio investments include Telkom Kenya, Interswitch, Mall for Africa and Zola Electric. |
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| Healthcare entrepreneurs, TechCabal has pulled together a stack of content just for you. Learn how to develop new product and services, the major pillars of growth and more. Want more? Download our report, “The State of Health Tech in Nigeria”, for a sector deep dive into challenges, opportunities and recommendations compiled especially for innovators, investors and regulators. Get it here. |
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Naspers’ anticipated listing on Euronext, the European stock exchange based in Amsterdam will happen on July 17. A new company (currently being called NewCo) created by Naspers for this purpose will hold its international assets including Tencent, Russian internet platform, Mail.Ru and U.S. online marketplace Letgo making it the third largest company on the exchange. The listing will help reduce Naspers’ weighting on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and unlock the value of its US$122 billion stake in Tencent. Naspers will retain 73% of NewCo while it will distribute the rest amongst its existing shareholders. Its current listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) will hold its media assets and local ventures, Takealot and Property24 although NewCo will have secondary listing on the JSE.
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TechMoney Africa Summit, a conference that will bring together technology, innovation and finance leaders from across the continent will hold on June 10 and 11 at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. The event seeks to support tech talent and startups to secure investment. It will also educate tech leaders in major public and private organisations about the latest innovation for citizen/customer service delivery. Speakers for the conference include Olumide Soyombo (Partner, Blue Chip Technology), Bola Asiru (Principal, Mastercard), Dr Akintoye Akindele (Synergy Capital) and Jack Russo (Managing Partner, Computer Law Group). Register to attend here.
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| Travelstart, a Cape Town-based online travel agency, has announced an investment deal with global private equity firm, HarbourVest. Although the size of the investment was undisclosed, it will support Travelstart’s further expansion into new geographic markets and growth in new verticals. In 2016, the company received a $40 million investment from Amadeus Capital Partners and MTN. Last year, Wakanow, one of Travelstart’s major competitors raised US$40 million from Carlyle Group. |
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| Kenya’s on-demand delivery startup, Sendy has launched its B2B service in Uganda. The service comprises a long distance haulage offering which will pitch the startup against companies such as Lori Systems and Kobo360. Sendy raised a $2 million funding round in February 2018 from Safaricom, DOB Equity and other investors. |
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| Vodacom’s Mum & Baby service now has 1.4 million subscribers in South Africa. Launched in 2017, the service connects mothers and caregivers to stage-based pregnancy, maternal, neonatal, child health advice and wellbeing information. Thirty-percent of its subscribers are pregnant women, 27% are mothers and 24% are fathers. |
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| Goke Olubusi, CEO & Co-founder at Helium Health in Microtraction’s Advice for Founders content series highlights the importance of personality tests for recruiting and managing high-performance teams. Read it all here. |
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That’s All,
We’ll see you tomorrow.
– Olanrewaju
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