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This Week: Racism in South African VC?

By Ngozi Chukwu Jul 23, 2022

Image source: Techcabal

Editor’s Note

Week 29, 2022
Read time: 5 minutes

In the past, we’ve done some reporting on gender imbalance in the startup funding landscape. But this week, we’re sharing some news about racist biases in the African funding space. It’s a situation we’ll be reporting on again soon, so we’d love to read your thoughts about it.

Have a great weekend.

Kelechi Njoku, Senior Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Picks

	Nigerian fintech execs convicted in the US Nigerian fintech executives at US-based Ping Express were sentenced to a combined 8 years in US prison for money laundering. They transferred $167 million—including proceeds from fraud—to Nigeria for over 3 years. Read more on TechCabal.
	South Africa’s black startup founders are excluded from funding It appears that the fundraising landscape of the rainbow nation—South Africa—isn’t colour-inclusive. The South African Competition Commission reported that though the country’s population is 8% white, white founders are more likely to raise $58,000 (R1 million) than black founders. Learn more on TechCabal.
	Nigeria’s Senate passes the Nigeria Startup Bill Nigeria’s Senate has passed the Nigeria Startup Bill. The bill which aims to remove the hurdles obstructing Nigerian startups will now continue its journey to becoming law. It has 2 more milestones to reach—the House of Representatives and the Presidency. Learn more on TechCabal.
	The 5 African startups in Y Combinator’s S22 batch Out of 146 applications from all over the world, 5 African startups have been accepted into Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch. They are Pivo Technologies, Chowdeck, Garage Mobility, Patika, and Moneco. Read more on TechCabal.
	Experts say CBN can’t enforce new directive The governor of Nigeria’s central bank, Godwin Emefiele, said that it is illegal to use the Nigerian naira to buy dollars. He threatened to arrest and prosecute anyone caught in the act, but several experts we spoke to agree that Emefiele’s threat has no legal backing. Full details are on TechCabal.
	Vodacom loses almost 400,000 subscribers in 3 months South African mobile network operator Vodacom lost almost 400,000 subscribers between April 2022 and June 2022. However, while its subscribers dropped, revenue, contract customer base, data traffic, and more grew. Learn more on TechCabal.

	MTN in talks to acquire Telkom MTN and South African mobile network operator Telkom are discussing the possibility of an acquisition. The acquisition will strengthen MTN’s presence in the 38 countries where Telkom operates. The news is on TechCabal.

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	Africa’s first cybersecurity fusion centre Liquid Cloud and Cybersecurity have launched Africa’s first cybersecurity fusion centre—Fusion Lab. The lab fuses services by Liquid technology, Liquid Cloud Operations and Liquid Network Operation Centres and ensures that customers have full support across their cyber security, cloud, and networks. More details are on TechCabal.
	Nigerian mobility tech MAX attains 100 million km milestone Nigerian mobility tech platform, MAX has covered a total distance of over 100 million kilometres. This is like going to the moon 260 times. They spoke to TechCabal about how they pulled it off. Read the interview on TechCabal.
	ShopEx TV to launch live-shopping platform Livestream shopping is finding its way to Africa. ShopEX TV operator, Response Architects, has exclusively partnered with Alibaba Cloud to launch a live stream shopping platform, Penda, in major African markets like Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. Read about it on TechCabal.
	inq. acquires license to edge orchestration technology inq. has gotten the license to be edge-y. The pan-African computing solutions provider acquired a license of Sweden-based Enea AB’s technology, Enea Edge. This brings inq. into the edge orchestration space and widens its customer base to the US and Europe. Learn more on TechCabal.
	Meta’s plans for Kenya’s elections Once bitten twice shy. Meta has been bitten severally by election-related scandals so it’s unsurprising that the social media giant is rolling out a dedicated Kenyan Elections Operation Centre and other fact-checking measures to combat fake election news ahead of Kenya’s upcoming elections. Read more on TechTrends.
	Construction of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant begins Egypt has joined the nuclear club. The dream of half a century is coming true for the nation as it begins the construction of its first nuclear plant. The construction of cutting-edge power units of VVER-1200 launched at the El Dabaa. Full details are on TechTrends.
	Municipal manager charged for unlawful $12 million tender A former manager of South Africa’s Moretele Municipality has been arrested and awaiting trial for unlawfully awarding an ICT management contract worth R215 million ($12 million) to ICT firm, Flame IT Strategy in 2016. Full story is on TheTalkNG
	AfyaRekod puts Kenyans’ medical records on the blockchain While cryptocurrencies suffer disaffection, other adoptions of blockchain technology continue in Africa. Kenyan health tech AfyaRekod has launched a blockchain-based platform that enables the retrieval of patients’ health data and medical history in real time. Learn more on Africa.com.

Who brought the money this week?

Africa-focused integrated tech company Cassava Technologies secured $50 million in investment from C5 Capital.
Bloom, a Sudan-based fintech, raised $6.5 million in a seed round.
Moroccan startup, Aza Petrolsolutions, raised $296,000 in funding from the Maroc Numeric Fund II.
Carthay Afrivest Investment Fund (CAIF) raised $112 million to finance early- to growth-stage startups in Africa.