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This week: Sky.Garden faces shut down

By Ngozi Chukwu Oct 01, 2022

Image source: Techcabal

Editor’s Note

Week 39, 2022
Read time: 5 minutes

Multinational oil giant Shell acquiring a clean-energy company is further proof that we’re in interesting times, given Shell’s history with pollution. Sultan covered that story this week, and we highlight it here, alongside other fine stories from TechCabal this week.

Happy post-Friday.

Kelechi Njoku Senior Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Picks

	Sky.Garden to shut down The future is brittle for several startups due to the funding winter. Three months after Kenyan foodtech Kune shut down, another Kenyan startup Sky.Garden, a B2C marketplace, has announced that it may have to tow the same path soon. Listen to the CEO.
	Nigerian investors sue in Kenya Over 2,000 Nigerian investors have petitioned Kenyan courts to release funds which were earlier frozen by the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) in a fraud investigation against fintech unicorn Flutterwave. Learn more.
	Lagos suspends tech hub audits Nigerians accused the Lagos Safety commission of overtaxing the tech sector when it announced that all coworking spaces and tech hubs would be required to pay an annual sum of ₦150,000 ($347) for upcoming audits. Now the audits have been suspended. More details.
	Uber and Bolt drivers go slow in Kenya Uber and Bolt drivers stage go-slow protest in Kenya to pressure both ride-hailing companies to reduce their commissions to 18%. The drivers say that the rising cost of fuel is burning too much off their earnings. Learn more.
	Higher borrowing rates loom over Nigeria Nigeria’s apex bank has raised interest rates to a record high to stope the record inflation. This is in the best interest of Nigerians, but things may get worse before they get better as commercial banks will also increase their interest on loans they offer business people. Read more.

	Daystar Power sells to shell Oil-producing giant Shell has a long history in Nigeria albeit muddled with civil and environmental scandals. This week it made its first clean-energy acquisition in Nigeria; it acquired Nigeria-based clean energy startup Daystar Power. Learn why Daystar sold to Shell.

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	Jumia partners with Zipline E-commerce giant Jumia now has wings. It has partnered with drone delivery service Zipline to offer on-demand drone delivery services to its costumers in Africa. The service will first roll out in Ghana and not Nigeria, its biggest market. Learn more.
	Safaricom makes overdrafts cheaper Ruto has snagged yet another win: cheaper Fuliza loans. Ahead of a planned presidential review of Kenya’s credit scoring system, Safaricom and its partner banks reduced daily charges for loans below Sh1000 ($8.29) from Fuliza, a short-term digital loan product. Learn more.
	The race for 5G dominance in SA The battle lines for 5G dominance have been drawn in South Africa and most telecoms in the country know that victory belongs to those who have access to fibre. How have MTN, Rain, Vodacom, Telecom and others have been running so far? Find out.
	Paymob partners with Tabby Paymob, an Egyptian payment and shopping app, has partnered with Tabby, a Dubai-based buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform to offer interest- and fee-free payment solutions to over 120,000 merchants in Egypt. . Learn more.

Who brought the money this week?

Yellow Card, a crypto exchange platform, closed a $40 million series B round led by Polychain Capital.
Vendease, a Nigerian digital procurement platform, secured $30 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Partech Africa and TLcom.
South African identity startup, iDENTIFii, received $15 million in growth capital. The round was led by African investment company Arise.
Uganda-based fintech, Numida, raised $12.3 million in a pre-Series A equity-debt funding round led by Serena Ventures with participation from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital and Y Combinator.
South African home services startup, SweepSouth, secured $11 million in a round led by Alitheia IDF, a gender-lens private equity fund.
Farmerline, a Ghanaian-based agritech company raised a $1.5 million extension to its previous $12.9 million pre-Series A announced in April.