South Africa: DataProphet Closes U.S.$10 Million to Scale Its AI-As-a-Service Platform for Manufacturers

Manufacturing plants or factories take raw material inputs and add value through a sequence of unit processes before shipping a product. Now, this process must follow a recipe.… Read more »

South Africa: Startup Qwili Gets U.S.$1.2 Million to Scale Its App and Low-Cost NFC-Enabled Smartphone

Qwili, a startup that provides a hybrid sales product to micro and small merchants in South Africa, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding a year after closing an undisclosed… Read more »

South Africa: Talk360 Raises U.S.$4 Million to Build Single Payment Platform for Africa

Many businesses looking to set up pan-African operations are often met with the challenge of establishing payment services that are appropriate for each country they go to. Most of… Read more »

Mozambique: Elon Musk Says Starlink Has Been Approved in Nigeria and Mozambique

Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Friday that Starlink, the satellite internet service launched by SpaceX, his space exploration company, has been approved in Nigeria and… Read more »

Namibia: B2B E-Commerce Retail Platform JABU Raises U.S.$15 Million Led By Tiger Global

More venture capital keeps trooping into Africa's B2B e-commerce retail, a space where startups are digitizing informal trade to get thousands of merchants to operate more… Read more »

South Africa: Edtech FoondaMate Eyes Speedy Takeoff After U.S.$2 Million Funding

South African edtech startup FoondaMate has secured $2 million seed funding in a round led by LocalGlobe, the UK-based venture capital firm, to drive uptake of its Whatsapp and… Read more »

Africa: How Untapped Global Plans to Bring the Revenue Financing Model to African Startups

In the developed world, almost anyone can get financing for, say, a car lease. But in an emerging economy like South Africa, the only people who own cars or can even get a car… Read more »

Zambia: Card-Issuing Startup Union54 Raises U.S.$12 Million Led By Tiger Global

Zambian card issuing fintech Union54 has raised $12 million in a seed extension round led by Tiger Global. Other participating investors in this financing round include existing… Read more »

South Africa: Didi Cancels Its Trip in South Africa

Didi Chixung, the Chinese ride-hailing giant, has today shut down its operations in South Africa (SA), a year after it launched in the country, marking its entry into the… Read more »

South Africa: Meta Faces Prosecution for Alleged Antitrust Breach

Meta is facing prosecution in South Africa, after the country's competition regulator, the Competition Commission, found as uncompetitive its intention to block the government's… Read more »

South Africa: Clickatell Raises U.S.$91 Million to Scale Its Chat Commerce Platform and U.S. Expansion

The global chat commerce's total addressable market is worth an estimated $80 billion and is seen as the third big wave of digital commerce after e-commerce and app commerce… Read more »

Zambia: After Zambia, Kenya Explores Possibility of a Digital Currency

Kenya's central bank has called on the public to share their views, before May 20th, on the possibility of adopting a digital currency, just one day after it emerged that Zambia is… Read more »

Malawi: Kenyan Insurtech Startup Lami Enters Malawi, DRC After Acquiring Bluewave, Eyes Rest of Africa

Kenyan insurtech startup Lami Technologies has acquired Bluewave Insurance Agency for an undisclosed amount as it seeks to make insurance covers accessible to more people across… Read more »

South Africa: a16z, Avenir and Google Back South African Mobile Games Publisher Carry1st in U.S.$20 Million Round

Carry1st, a South African publisher of social games and interactive content across Africa, has raised a $20 million Series A extension led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). This is… Read more »

Namibia: YC-Backed Namibian Startup Jabu Gets $3.2m for Its B2b E-Commerce and Retail Play

Namibian business-to-business e-commerce startup JABU confirmed to TechCrunch that it has raised a $3.2 million financing round. Read more »

South Africa: Planet42 Gets U.S.$30 Million for Its Car Subscription Service, Mexico Expansion

Planet42, a South Africa-based car subscription company that buys used cars from dealerships and rents to customers via a subscription model, has raised $30 million in equity and… Read more »

South Africa: Crowd-Solving Startup Zindi Building a Community of Data Scientists and Using AI to Solve Real World Problems

Zindi is all about using AI to solve real world problems for companies and individuals. And the South Africa-based crowd-solving startup has done that over the last three years… Read more »

South Africa: South African Talent Marketplace OfferZen Gets U.S.$5.2 Million to Deepen European Expansion

South African tech talent marketplace OfferZen is one of the beneficiaries of the growing global demand for tech workers: It confirmed to TechCrunch that it has raised €4.5… Read more »

South Africa: South Africa's Mobiz Nabs U.S.$4m to Expand Personalized SMS Marketing Into the U.S.

Mobiz, a South African startup integrating hyper-personalization into mobile marketing, has raised a pre-Series A round of $ 4 million from HAVAÍC, Futuregrowth, Launch… Read more »

South Africa: NFTfi Raises U.S.$5 Million So People Can Use Their NFTs As Collateral for Loans

Once regarded as a fad (for some, it still is), NFTs, digital assets that depict real-world objects, are becoming increasingly popular within and outside the crypto world. Read more »

South Africa: South Africa's Root Gets $3m, Plans to Expand Low-Code Insurance Platform to Europe

Insurance lags behind other financial services in the adoption of digital technologies. Granted, a few unicorns have popped up from the modern digital insurance space such as… Read more »

South Africa: Fidelity, Visa and Kingsway Back South African Fintech Jumo in $120m Round

JUMO, a South Africa- and London-based company that offers financial services to entrepreneurs and businesses in emerging markets, has raised $120 million in a new round of funding… Read more »

South Africa: Bolt to Expand EV Option in South Africa

Estonian on-demand transport firm Bolt is set to roll out electric taxi options in South Africa four months after introducing e-bike food delivery services in the country. Read more »

South Africa: Stitch Gets a $2m Seed Extension, Hires Benjamin Dada to Lead Nigerian Expansion

Two months into 2021, South African fintech Stitch came out of stealth and raised $4 million in seed funding, allowing it to begin to make inroads into Nigeria some months ago. Read more »

Zambia: Tiger Global Leads $3m Round in Zambia's Union54 for Its Card-Issuing API

Union54, the first Zambian startup backed by Y Combinator, has gotten another major venture capital firm on its term sheet: Tiger Global. Read more »