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Welcome to today’s edition of TC Daily! If this mail was forwarded to you, please take a moment to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future editions.
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| Opera, today, announced that it has raised $50 million in funding for its 11-month old mobile payment startup, OPay. Majority of the investments came from China-based VCs with lead investors like IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Source Code Capital, Meituan-Dianping, GSR Ventures, and Opera Limited. The funds will be primarily used to scale up OPay’s position in the Nigeria market and secondarily pivot to other African markets, Opera says. The company announced a US$100 million investment in Africa’s digital economy two years ago, with US$40 million dedicated to Nigeria. Its sister products, ORide and OFood, will also be impacted by the new investment as the company further solidifies its presence in the continent with its all-purpose “super app”. |
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Youspital, Lender, OTO Courses, and Nash2 are among ten Egyptian social impact startups selected to participate in the Changelabs accelerator programme. The accelerator is run in partnership with Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation incubator, Blom Bank Egypt, Amazon and the Entrepreneurship Academy by SANAD. The ten startups comprising the first cohort will benefit from access to mentors, experts, investors, partners, customers and up to EGP2.5 million (US$150,000) in funding.
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Join us today at 9:00 AM for the TC Townhall: Renewable Energy as governments, regulators, investors, development agencies, multinationals, and entrepreneurs discuss “The Future of Africa’s Energy”. We will be attempting to answer the question; “How do we quickly build modern energy infrastructure, that is affordable and provides last-mile access, using abundant renewable energy resources, in a friendly policy environment?”
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Applications are open for the Women’s Technology Empowerment Center (W.TEC) 2019 She Creates Technology Camps, a two-week tech boot camp for girls aged 13 to 17 years, taking place in Lagos, Kwara and Anambra states, Nigeria. Applications are also open for the 2019 Early Innovators Technology Camps for children between 5 and 10 years, taking place in Lagos (Lekki and Ikeja) in July – September 2019. For more details on the camp, please contact Adeyemi Odutola – Communications Officer, W.TEC on 0809 698 7541 or email yemi@wtec.org.ng
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African Leadership Academy (ALA) alumni, Anzisha Fellows and individuals who have participated in any of ALA’s programmes are set to benefit from a $500, 000 Young Entrepreneurs Fund in partnership with Omidyar Network. According to ALA vice president growth and entrepreneurship, Josh Adler the fund modeled after the US$115 million Endeavor Catalyst Fund, has been created to solve a problem he describes as a “crisis of trust”. By betting on its alumni, other investors can be encouraged to do same. South Africa’s Cloudline founder, Spencer Horne is one of the fund’s first beneficiary.
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Mastercard, in partnership with International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), is expanding its Mastercard Farmers Network (MFN) marketplace to more farmers, buyers and the agents in Uganda. MFN connects small-scale farmers with potential buyers, integrates their businesses with payment systems, and enables them to build a digital transaction record that can be used to access formal credit from banks and other financial institutions. The scheme is also live in Tanzania and India with more than 250,000 farmers on the platform currently.
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Leading Egyptian electronic payments company Fawry, is set to list on the Egyptian Exchange. Fawry’s co-founder and Managing Director Mohamed Okasha hinted at the public listing earlier in March. The company will list 45% of its shares before by August 8 just before Eid Holidays raising EGP 2 to 2.5 billion (USD$120 to 150 million). According to the news report, ten major shareholders are planning partial and full exits with the IPO.
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While South Africa’s troubled power utility company Eskom continues to pivot towards more renewable energy sources to improve power supply in the country, the second phase of a carbon tax bill which will come into effect in 2023 looms dangerously ahead. According to Bloomberg reports, when effected, the heavily indebted public utility company may be looking at an annual carbon-tax bill of about 11.5 billion rand (US$813 million). The second phase of the carbon tax will run from 2023 to 2030.
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Russian ride-hailing service inDriver has launched in Uganda its fourth location in Africa after Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. inDriver allows passengers to set their desired price for trips which drivers can accept, decline or counter. inDriver joins other ride-hailing services (Uber, Taxify, SafeBoda, Litle Ride, and Mondo Ride) present in the country’s capital Kampala. The company says its unique business model will significantly enhance ride-hailing access in Uganda and serve as a competitive edge over the services currently operating in the city.
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That’s it for today,
We’ll be back tomorrow.
– Kay
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