IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Good morning ☀️ ️
It’s been a long week.
Last Friday, I ended the newsletter on a sad note: Zambia had restricted internet access amidst its national elections.
Well, this week, I’m ending with a bit of positivity: despite the information blackout, there was a massive voter turnout in Zambia. Also, the incumbent president lost by a landslide, more than one million votes according to BBC.
Considering all that’s happened this week, I’m glad that people appear to be taking more active roles in politics.
In today’s edition:
- Quick Fire🔥
- JP Morgan dedicates $20m to black-owned South African businesses
- #FutureOfCommerce2021 – Here’s Klasha!
- The new cohort for GreenHouse Capital’s Fintech Accelerator
- TC Insights: Funding Tracker
Quick Fire 🔥 with ELOHO OMAME
Explain your job to a five-year-old.
I give women money to build cool companies.
What’s something you wish you knew earlier in your career/life?
Few things are ever as complex as the people who get paid lots of money to do them want to make them seem.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received in your career?
Stop waiting for permission that will never come.
What (singular) achievement are you most proud of?
Starting FirstCheck Africa.
Tell us about something you love doing that you’re terrible at. And tell us about something you really do not like doing that you’re great at.
I like to laugh and I tell terrible jokes, usually at the most inappropriate times.
I’m also a pretty good speaker. I usually don’t need much prep, I use lots of unconventional words and interesting analogies, so I can be very impressive and quite persuasive. I’d happily go days without speaking to anyone at all though.
What new ways of doing things will you keep from this past year?
Working from home. Working remotely and asynchronously this past year has given me the freedom to create a wonderfully organic work-life blend that finally works.
Eloho Omame is Co-Founder of FirstCheck Africa, a pre-seed fund that invests in female-led and diverse teams building technology startups in Africa.
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JP MORGAN DEDICATES $20M TO BLACK-OWNED SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESSES
JP Morgan, an American multinational investment bank and financial services company, has launched a $20 million fund for black-owned businesses in South Africa.
The funds will be disbursed as short-term loans with three-to-four month repayment plans, and long-term loans, with two-to-five year repayment periods.
Why black-owned businesses?
It’s all about leveling the playing field since white founders have a better chance of getting funded than their black colleagues.
Of the 10 most well-funded African startups of 2019, eight were run by white people. Another analysis done in 2020 also discovered that in Kenya, only 6% of startups that received more than $1m in 2019 were led by locals. In Nigeria, 55% of the large-scale funding went to local founders.
In South Africa, the percentage stood at 56%.
A brighter future
JP Morgan isn’t the only investor helping build South-African businesses. Naspers, in 2018, launched Naspers Foundry, a $96 million investment vehicle to fund South African startups. Though the Napster fund is open to anyone building in the country, JP Morgan will be joining the efforts to scale the South Africa startup ecosystem.
Read more: JP Morgan dedicates $20m to fund black-owned businesses in South Africa
Join the Future Africa Collective – an exclusive community of investors who invest in startups building the future of Africa. With a $1,000 annual or a $300 quarterly subscription fee, you get access to invest a minimum of $2,500 in up to 20 fast-growing African startups each year. Learn More
#FUTUREOFCOMMERCE2021 – MEET A SPONSOR
K For Klasha
What does Klasha do?
Klasha is a unified payments solution that allows international retailers, and consumers to make and receive payments online in local African currencies. Through its payment gateway, it allows consumers to pay online in African currencies through multiple money methods, and merchants to receive payouts in dominant currencies.
Will someone from Klasha be speaking at the event?
Yes! Klasha’s Founder and CEO, Jessica Anuna will be speaking on a panel tagged “The Future of Payments”.
Jessica heads a team of 20 people at Klasha. She was educated at Cambridge University and is ex-Amazon, Net-A-Porter, and Shopify. She has been featured in Forbes, WWD, and BBC London News. She has also given keynote speeches at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva, and Nairobi, and the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa.
Jessica is just one of the many insightful speakers who will be speaking at #FOC2021.
🔔If we were you, we wouldn’t miss out. Book a slot now.
The Future of Commerce is brought to you in partnership with DAI Magister and Paystack and is sponsored by Doroki, Chipper Cash and Klasha.
🤝Looking to sponsor? Be like Klasha and send an email now to favour@bigcabal.com.
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THE TOP 20 AFRICA CHALLENGER BRANDS
GreenHouse Lab, the fintech accelerator program arm of GreenHouse Capital, has announced the eight startups selected for its 2021 cohort.
Each of the eight startups will receive $10,000 direct investments from GreenHouse capital, and an additional $50,000 if they get into a global accelerator program like Y Combinator or 500 startups.
Who’s on the list?
Six (6) emerging startups from Nigeria, and two (2) from Kenya.
From Kenya, Chumz is leveraging the prevalence of mobile money to enable real-time, and accessible investing. It helps demystify the investing process and achieve financial freedom.
Route helps users track and manage savings as well as invest their savings to build wealth.
From Nigeria, there’s Dojah which aggregates customer data from multiple sources into one API that service providers can use to verify customer information.
GetEquity enables individuals to invest in startups, helps startups to raise funding from more sources, and allows investors to create liquidity by exchanging shares in their portfolio companies.
MyInvest, on the other hand, allows users to invest in high-yield real-estate projects.
Payhive provides a solution for global payment transfers using cryptocurrency wallets and a secure transaction platform.
Collect Africa helps businesses connect multiple payment methods to their websites or mobile apps through a single API to give their customers more ways to pay.
Finally, there’s ScaleX, a secure, automated, multi-network P2P platform that gives traders the flexibility to trade coins from multiple networks while controlling transaction fees.
What’s next?
The cohort will spend the next six weeks in the program, attending exclusive sessions with accomplished tech founders, global investors, and corporate partners like Google for Startups and InsiderPR.
GreenHouse Capital knows what they’re doing. They have invested in some of Africa’s leading start-ups including Flutterwave, Max.ng, and Wallets.
Their model is founder-backed, with veteran founders helping younger founders find and solve critical challenges. This model has contributed to getting about 40% of the start-ups GreenHouse Capital invested in to get selected for global accelerator programs.
Fintech accounts for almost half of the investments raised every year and it’s great to see growth in the space.
TC Insights: Funding Tracker
This week, Kenyan-based fintech startup Pngme secured $15million in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures, an European VC firm. Other participants were Raptor Group, Lateral Capital, EchoVC, Future Africa, Two Small Fish Ventures, and Unshackled Ventures.
The other deals for the week are:
- Kenyan customer loyalty startup CashBackApp raised $475,000 from Lofty Inc, Sherpa Ventures, and Loyal VC, with participation from other angel investors.
- Showlove, a Nigerian-based gifting platform received $300,000 in pre-seed funding round from Fedha Capital and other angel investors.
- Egyptian student transportation platform, Schoolz closed a six-figure pre-seed funding round from investors from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
- Nigerian gaming startup, Gamr raised an undisclosed seed round from Empawa Africa, Adrenaline Gaming, and other angel investors.
That’s all we’ve got this week!
Follow TC Insights on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more updates.
Event
Last month, Sophina Kid-Lawson and Daniel Osineye were on a TechCabal panel to discuss cybersecurity with other industry veterans.
It was insightful but there wasn’t enough time and so, they’re holding a sequel.
On the 20th of August by 6 PM, they’ll be holding an InstaLive session where they’ll answer 10 Common Questions on Cybersecurity.
Sophie is a Developer Platform Investigator at Facebook and Daniel is CTO at evolve credit, they know a lot about cybersecurity and they want to share their knowledge with everyone. Join the conversation on Instagram with @dannie_os and @sophieontech_.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Every week, TechCabal shares job opportunities in the African ecosystem.
- TechCabal – Senior Writer (Africa)
- Float – Senior Frontend Engineer
- Bitram – Head of Innovation – Nairobi, Kenya
- Mastercard Foundation – Country Assurance Lead – Accra, Ghana – Deadline: August 26
- Mastercard Foundation – Executive Assistant – Kigali, Rwanda – Deadline: August 25
- First Check Africa – Social Media and Content Executive – Lagos, Nigeria (Remote)
- BBC News – Senior Journalist – Nairobi, Kenya
There are more opportunities here. If you’d like to share a job opening or an opportunity, please fill this form.
What else we’re reading
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Written by – Timi Odueso
Edited by – Daniel Adeyemi
