IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Good morning ☀️ ️
Facebook is introducing Marketplace to thirty-five (35) countries across Sub-saharan Africa to help people discover a new way to shop online.
Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia have had the Marketplace feature since the beginning of the year and users could search for and purchase products from vendors close to them. Facebook is now rolling the feature out to its users in other African countries.
Watch out Botswana, Benin, Liberia, and Ghana, Facebook is bringing you this feature!
In today’s edition:
- Quick Fire 🔥
- Bumpa raises $200k
- YouTube is investing $100 million in Kenya
- TC Insights: Funding Tracker
- Tech Probe
- Events: Future of Commerce
QUICK FIRE 🔥 WITH FATMA NASUJO
Fatma Nasujo is currently the Global Head of Operational Excellence at Sokowatch. A financial services professional with 12+ years of experience working in FinTech, EdTech & banking, her expertise is in Operations, Tech & Finance, and she has used her skills to serve businesses across East Africa.
She’s passionate about financially empowering the under-served, and to that end, has worked with various companies including 4G Capital where she was the Chief Operations Officer, assisting them in designing products for this market. She’s the founder of Nasujo.com, a blog on financial literacy and digital finance trends.
Fatma, explain your job to a five-year-old.
I make sure neighborhood shops always have things to sell to their customers.
What has been the most important management decision of your career?
I fell in love with Operations and problem-solving so pursuing this even though my educational background is in computer science is probably one of the most important career decisions I have ever made. Working in Operations has provided me with great opportunities to solve problems and positively impact people’s lives by designing efficient systems. My technology education always helps in simplifying processes and knowing when and what to automate.
Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Pursue knowledge and new experiences. Keep learning and be open to new perspectives. Get out of your comfort zone, it’ll help in learning new things. Taking risks and making mistakes makes for more meaningful learning. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable, but you’re building new muscle, so stick with it.
What are you currently reading?
This year I started reading multiple books at the same time. I am currently reading Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, Working Backwards by Bill Carr and Colin Bryar and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
If you did not have to sleep, how would you spend the extra hours?
I’d spend more time with my family, reading and on my other hobbies.
BUMPA RAISES $200K
Bumpa, an e-commerce solution startup helping African retailers manage and grow their businesses from their mobile phones, has closed a $200k pre-seed funding round.
The funding round was led by Greencap Equity and Microtraction, with contributions from some angel investors including Prosper Otemuyiwa and OO Nwoye.
Bumpa unifies the value chain by providing its users with a one-stop shop for their business processes. On Bumpa, merchants can accept online and offline payments, manage inventory/products, handle bookkeeping, fulfill orders and track sales, request dispatch riders & engage customers easily, all on their smartphones.
Backstory:
Bumpa was founded by Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele who met at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife, Nigeria, where the former was studying mechanical engineering and the latter, law.
On campus, both students were popular for one thing: building apps and projects. This penchant for solving problems brought them together and they later founded a startup, HostCabal (no relation 👀).
It was while building HostCabal, consulting for numerous SMEs on digitizing their businesses, that they got insight into the needs of SMEs that were trying to take their businesses online.
“We then thought of a simple solution to help non tech-savvy small business owners set up their businesses online in the shortest possible time; that gave birth to Bumpa,” co-founder Opayele said.
How it’s going
For Bumpa, the journey has been smooth but it’s had a few bumps.
Since launching in February 2021, Bumpa says it has boarded over 7,000 merchants on its platform, listing over 30,000 products and recording over $500,000 in processed transactions. The startup is also reportedly running at a 50% month-on-month growth rate.
Bumpa does have competitors though. In recent times, more businesses are moving their supply chain processes online and there are competitors like Sabi and Chunk who are finding their shares of this growing market.
Damilare Dosunmu has more in Bumpa raises $200k pre-seed to build e-commerce solutions for African merchants.
Increase your online sales with a Paystack Storefront – a free, beautiful seller page that helps you bring creative ideas to life.
YOUTUBE IS INVESTING $100 MILLION IN KENYA
Short-form video content is killing it. From Instagram stories to TikTok to Reels, social media platforms are helping businesses and individuals hack growth by taking advantage of people’s short attention spans.
Last year, YouTube launched its own iteration, YouTube Shorts and now, it’s investing in Kenyan content creators who utilize the platform.
How much are we talking about?
About Ksh10.98 billion ($99 million) will be distributed between 2021 and 2022.
Content creators can earn up to Ksh1.1 million per month for every 15-second video they upload.
Engagement equals enrichment
YouTube mentioned that the funds will be distributed based on the content creators’ performances from the last month. Views and likes will be used to track just how engaging content creators are and how they’ll be rewarded.
The requirements for funding will also be changed on a month-to-month basis so YouTube is probably going to raise the bar to ensure that everyone gets a piece.
If there’s one criticism that YouTube, or social media platforms have gotten, it’s that they reward vanity metrics. It doesn’t matter if the content creator’s posts are original or not, what usually matters is how many views their posts get. With this new Shorts Fund, YouTube is looking to reward and recognize content creators across various verticals.
Zoom out: On the surface, YouTube is giving Kenyan content creators an income and a chance to shine on the global stage. It’s also obvious, however, that this is the platform’s attempt to compete with TikTok. Imagine a video shorts contest between Youtube’s 2 billion+ and TikTok’s estimated 1.1 billion users.
In other news: I just may be moving to Nairobi to start a new life as a food blogger.
Time to take control of your investing journey.
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TC INSIGHTS: FUNDING TRACKER
This week, ear1, a Ghanaian-based social media startup that allows people to talk to influencers and professionals for a small fee, closed a $520,000 pre-seed round. The round was led by Danny Oyekan of Dan Ventures, with Alkesh Thavrani of Stellar International, Prosper Otemuyiwa (CTO of EdenLife) and other participants.
The other deals for the week are:
- Nigerian e-commerce startup, Bumpa raised $200,000 in a pre-seed funding round from Greencap Equity, HOAQ Club, Whogohost Venture Arm, Rizq Investment Group, Microtraction, DFS Labs, Aidi Ventures, Prosper Otemuyiwa, OO Nwoye, Perfect Makanju, and other angel investors.
- Ridelink, a Ugandan e-logistics platform, secured a $150k pre-seed investment round from its partnership with Ortus Africa Capital, Omidyar Network and African Leadership Academy’s Young Entrepreneurs Fund(Anzisha).
- Moroccan B2B e-commerce platform, Chari.ma closed a round of funding from Plug and Play and YCombinator.
- Nigerian startup Sabi, a B2B marketplace serving Africa’s informal sector, secured a seed funding round from investors including CRE Ventures, Janngo Capital, Atlantica Ventures, and Waarde Capital.
- Ride-hailing platform, Kai Senegal raised a round of seed funding from Mobility 54 and CFAO Group.
- Rwandan health startup Viebeg raised a pre-seed round from Beyond Capital Ventures, Beyond Capital Fund and Eckenstein Geigy Stiftung.
That’s all we’ve got this week!
Follow TC Insights on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for more updates on funding deals.
TECH PROBE
Share your answer with us on Twitter or send a reply to newsletter@techcabal.com.
We’ll publish the most interesting answers on Monday.
KB4-CON EMEA is a free, highly engaging, cybersecurity-focused virtual event designed for CISOs, security awareness and cybersecurity professionals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The event will be on Thursday, September 23rd and features keynotes from two of the most well-known figures in cybersecurity. Mikko Hyppönen will cover how our global networks are being threatened by surveillance and crime, and how we can fix our technical, and human, problems. Kevin Mitnick will reveal social engineering tradecraft and insights and wow you with a live hacking demonstration. You can register here.
EVENTS: A PEEP AT THE #FUTUREOFCOMMERCE
With Favour Ogunlana – Head of Strategic Partnerships, Big Cabal Media.
What kind of companies are sponsoring the Future of Commerce?
Leading Fintech, Commerce, Payments, Logistics and Digital Identity players in the African ecosystem.
What do these companies stand to gain from being sponsors?
Sponsors for #FOC2021 get to position their brands and be at the core of the biggest conversation about commerce in Africa. Our sponsors will speak to the role their companies are playing in the commerce shift in Africa, and of course, share what makes them cool!
Is it still possible to partner with TechCabal on this conference?
No, all the coolest companies are already on board! We are committed to delivering the most important conversation on commerce that will provide value and visibility for our sponsors.
What are you personally looking forward to at the event?
I’m excited to listen to the shifts in commerce across different industries and to get a sense of what’s next in commerce. I’m also looking forward to networking and the possible potential partnerships.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Every week, TechCabal shares job opportunities in the African ecosystem.
- Mastercard Foundation – Program Partner, Innovation – Accra, Ghana – Deadline: September 20
- Brink – Community Manager, East Africa, Innovation Manager, East Africa – Kenya/Rwanda – Deadline: September 15
- Sokowatch – Credit Administration Associate – Kampala, Uganda
- Flutterwave – Technical Writer, UX Writer – Lagos, Nigeria.
- PiggyVest – Social Media Associate – Lagos, Nigeria
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
- Egypt’s myfawry allows customers conduct all their e-payments in one app. It has 3.5 million total downloads and now, Forbes has named it the No. 1 Fintech app in the Middle East. (TechCabal)
- Vodafone and MTN are blocking access to all the smartphones stolen during South Africa’s July looting. (MyBroadBand)
- Investing, especially for first timers, can be a rollercoaster ride. Franc wants to change that and make investing simple, affordable & social for South Africans. (TechMoran)
- Everyone wants a bit of Apple; the tech megacompany is now facing an antitrust lawsuit in India for forcing developers to use its in-app purchase system. (Economic Times Tech)
Renaissance Capital, a leading emerging and frontier markets investment bank with extensive operations in Africa, will hold its 12th Annual Pan-Africa Investor Conference on 7–10 September 2021.
The online event will feature a specialist Nigeria Tech / Fintech Conference on 9 September 2021. Click here to register.
