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TechCabal Daily – B2B Ecommerce Startup, Sokowatch Closes $14 million Series A Round

25th February 2020

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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH FLUTTERWAVE & HARVESTERS

25 – 02 – 2020

Good morning and welcome to TC Daily! Please take a moment to subscribe to our newsletter if this mail was forwarded to you. Also, join us on Telegram for all the hot takes and deep dives on Africa’s technology sector.

Wakanow is Africa’s leading, full-service online travel company. Visit www.wakanow.com to book flights, hotels, packaged tours, and much more. Pay securely via Flutterwave.

Four years after its official launch, Sokowatch, a Kenya-based B2B eCommerce startup has closed a $14 million Series A round. The round was led by Quona Capital with participation from Amplo, Breyer Capital, Vertex Ventures, Timon Capital and repeat investor 4DX Ventures. With the fresh capital, the startup wants to broaden its client services and target new African markets. Sokowatch provides a platform that connects merchants directly to local and multinational suppliers such as Unilever and Proctor and Gamble.  The startup raised a $2 million seed round in 2018 and afterwards expanded across East Africa; Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Are you a female founder, manager, engineer or practitioner interested in participating in intimate B2B networking sessions focused on helping you enhance your skills portfolio, build and work with the right team or pitch your product to investors? Apply to participate in the B2B: Women in Tech Clinics which is a series of business and personal growth sessions open for women working in the tech industry.  Application closes by 26th February 2020. The initiative is powered by Make-IT in Africa, a programme implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, in partnership with Made Culture, a project management consultancy.

The ban on motorcycles and tricycles in Lagos seems to favour a set of entrepreneurs who have been attempting to crack the market for some time; bus-hailing companies. Like the motorcycle-hailing companies, the issues these companies might face are already laid bare beginning with the infamous ‘regulatory grey area’. In this TechCabal article, Kay tracks the old and new bus-hailing companies now looking to conquer Lagos. Has their time come? Will they succeed? Will they fail?

Budding African entrepreneurs are faced with a myriad of business challenges,
like raising capital, accessing markets and finding mentorship. Come, discover how to tackle these challenges plus more, at the Harvesters Entrepreneurs Forum on Saturday, February 29, 2020. Click here to register free. (www.hef.harvestersng.org)

AI technology has grown slowly in Africa. Over the last decade, a number of tech companies have developed intelligent systems as their main pivot or to aid their services. For TechCabal, Abubakar looks at how smart companies across the continent are using AI across different sub-sectors.

Injini has announced the six edtech startups that made it into its fourth cohort. The startups include Ambani and Roundafire from South Africa; Lumen Labs from Kenya, Smartix Education from Ghana; 1 Million Teachers from Nigeria and Sierra Leone-based mobile financial literacy tool Mosabi.

Applications are now open for Ecobank Fintech Challenge. To join the challenge, apply here before April 12. Selected finalists will be inducted as Ecobank Fintech Fellows, and participate in a business boot camp followed by an Awards and Innovation Fair at the headquarters of the Ecobank Group in Lomé, Togo in June 2020.

The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has launched an inquiry to the digital credit market in the country. According to reports, CAK announced that they will investigate both regulated and unregulated digital lenders which have led a lot of people to be trapped into a debt cycle. Lending apps often offering very high rates have multiplied in Kenya in the last five years. There are at least 50 of them in the country. Despite Google’s efforts to get them to comply with its rules, these companies mostly try to find ways around the rules.

Dan Holdings, a Blockchain & Fintech investment firm and headline sponsor of TC Townhall Emerging Tech is giving away a limited amount of tickets to members of the TechCabal community. Please fill this form for a chance to get one.

Dan Holdings’ mission is to act as a powerhouse for widespread blockchain and fintech adoption and innovation, creating a sustainable legacy by devising technology-based solutions. Its portfolio includes: Telechat – a chat application with an integrated wallet for global digital currencies called Coins App which will be available both inside Telechat and as a standalone application; a cryptocurrency exchange BlockFinex, which is a crypto to crypto and Fiat to Crypto Exchange and Dan Ventures – which acts as the venture investment arm of Dan Holdings.

TC Townhall: Emerging Tech will convene entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and corporate organizations including telcos and financial institutions to examine how businesses, individuals and countries across the continent can maximize the benefits of emerging technologies, specifically AI and Blockchain. Learn more above the event here. Further discounts apply for companies/individuals buying at least 5 tickets. Click here to redeem our 20% corporate discount.

Au revoir,
See you tomorrow.

– Olanrewaju

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