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Microsoft Announces Plans to Partner with VCs, and Accelerators, to Promote 10,000 Startups in Africa

Hassan Barakat
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Microsoft Announces Plans to Partner with VCs, and Accelerators, to Promote 10,000 Startups in Africa

Microsoft has announced intentions to promote 10,000 African businesses over the next five years through a number of initiatives, including partnerships with accelerators and incubators throughout the continent.

It also announced plans to collaborate with venture capitalists to boost access to capital for African entrepreneurs by releasing $500 million in “potential” investment.

Microsoft has previously partnered with Banque Misr, Global Venture Capital, and Get Funded Capital, according to the company.

These initiatives will be carried out by Microsoft’s newly founded Africa Transformation Office (ATO), which is responsible for driving the company’s strategic ambitions in Africa through partnerships with public and private organizations.

“Our goal in forming these connections with venture capital investors is to expand the network of potential partnerships between Microsoft, venture capital investors, and startups, hence boosting the investment accessible to qualifying entrepreneurs,” said Gerald Maithya, ATO’s lead for startups.

Microsoft announced that it would form collaborations with accelerators and incubators such as Grindstone, Greenhouse, FlapMax, and Seedstars in order to give markets, technical expertise, and financial opportunities.

African startups will get access to Microsoft’s global Founders Hub, a self-service hub that provides businesses with a variety of services and mentors.

Co-selling options with Microsoft’s corporate and enterprise customers are also available through the Founders Hub.

“On the global startup landscape, Africa has enormous potential to become a vibrant hub of digital innovation.”

“Our goal is to witness a flood of local inventions that will benefit not only Africa’s digital economy, but the entire world,” said ATO managing director Wael Elkabbany.

Microsoft has joined the growing number of IT corporations launching initiatives aimed at African startups.

M-KOPA Secures $75M Funding, Led by Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group

Hassan Barakat
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M-KOPA Secures $75M Funding, Led by Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group

M-KOPA secures $75M in funding.

Without collateral or a guarantor, the company allows underbanked customers in specific African areas to access a wide range of products and services.

M-KOPA’s fifth equity round is referred to as the “growing equity round” in its press release.

M-KOPA has raised $190 million in total equity.

This round included previous investors such as the CDC Group and LGT Lightrock, as well as LocalGlobe’s Latitude Fund and HEPCO Capital Management.

The growth equity deal was led by Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group.

The company is led by the CEO and co-founder Jesse Moore.

M-KOPA is best recognized for its pay-as-you-go (PAYG) financing strategy, which allows customers to build appliance ownership over time by paying an initial deposit and then making flexible micro-payments.

M-KOPA began with solar-powered home systems aimed at low-income and rural consumers who lacked access to electricity in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

It has, however, expanded its pay-as-you-go model to cover additional necessities, such as cellphones (first introduced in Kenya two years ago), televisions, freezers, solar lighting, and digital financial services such as cash loans and health insurance.

The geographical scope of the organization has also shifted.

M-KOPA was largely focused on East Africa six years ago, but after pulling out of Tanzania, it is now present in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana.

M-KOPA expects to launch in one new market this year and in 2023 as part of its growth ambitions, which are based on this recent funding.

In the second half of this year, the ten-year-old company wants to expand its offerings in Nigeria, and in Q1 2023, in Ghana.

The platform matches fractional payment periods with customers’ daily or weekly earning and spending cycles to deliver finance and digital financial services to underbanked consumers in four geographies.

Its customers span from ride-hailing drivers to small-business owners who manage their firms using cell phones.

However, in a market where a large percentage of adults make less than $5 per day, a $100 smartphone is a luxury.

M-KOPA claims to have secured more than $600 million in finance for its 2 million underbanked customers across its markets to far.

Beyond asset financing, though, the Kenyan firm has a wider goal in mind.

M-KOPA will be able to scale financial services products like health insurance, cash loans, and BNPL merchant partnerships as a result of the new investment, which will allow the company to grow its flexible daily and weekly payment model.

In addition, M-KOPA intends to spend more in order to develop its client relationships and technology.

VALR Raises Africa’s Largest Crypto Funding Round of $50 million Series B Equity

Hassan Barakat
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VALR Raises Africa’s Largest Crypto Funding Round of $50 million Series B Equity

VALR, a cryptocurrency trading platform based in South Africa, has raised $50 million in Africa’s largest ever crypto funding round. The company is now worth $240 million.

Pantera Capital led the Series B equity funding round, which included Alameda Research, Cadenza, CMT Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, GSR, Third Prime, Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments, as well as existing investors Bittrex and 4Di Capital, and others.

Customers may safely buy, sell, and store Bitcoin and 60 other cryptocurrencies on the company’s platform, which has the largest assortment of any platform in Africa, at some of the lowest costs in the world.

Since its introduction in 2019, VALR has processed over $7.5 billion (R115 billion) in trading volume and now serves over 250,000 individual users and 500 institutional clients from around the world.

“The financial tools available to society should be used to bring us together, not to divide us.” That’s why I’m ecstatic that VALR is assisting in the development of a financial system that respects humanity’s oneness.”

“There is no longer any room for question about the impact crypto assets are having on our global financial system,” VALR CEO and Co-founder Farzam Ehsani adds.

Since its $3.4 million Series A round of fundraising in July 2020, VALR’s valuation has increased by more than 10X.

Pantera Capital Partner Paul Veradittakit states, “We are really excited to be leading the Series B round for VALR since we believe that Africa’s future is bright for the use of cryptocurrencies for both asset diversification and payments.” “VALR offers a fantastic product and service to both retail and institutional customers.”

“What VALR has established for retail and institutional traders over the last few years has blown us away,” says Kumar Dandapani, Founder and Managing Partner of Cadenza Capital Management.

VALR intends to bring onboard a slew of new traditional financial institutions, including the world’s largest banks, insurers, and hedge funds, to help them build the infrastructure they’ll need to enter the crypto asset market.

“The world is on the verge of a massive financial shift. Crypto assets will become increasingly important in our daily lives. VALR is here to assist our customers in transitioning from the old to the new financial system. We look forward to servicing you, whether you’re a person or an institution,” Ehsani said.

VALR plans to use the capital raised to expand across Africa and into other emerging countries such as India, as well as to provide more products and services to its increasing base of worldwide clients. The company has already begun hiring to expand its team.

Kenyan Tech Startup Cartnshop Secures $400,000, to Launch Next Month

Hassan Barakat
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Kenyan Tech Startup Cartnshop Secures $400,000, to Launch Next Month

Cartnshop, a Kenyan startup that helps African small businesses build up internet stores quickly and affordably, has secured $400,000 in funding as it prepares to launch next month.

Cartnshop was established in the year 2018. It’s an end-to-end e-store enablement engine that helps any retailer or corporation gain new customers.

Payment gateways, shipping and fulfillment centers, marketing and marketplace cross-listings, and business management capabilities are all part of the startup’s B2B and B2C channels.

“The Cartnshop ecosystem pulls stakeholders into the channels, including manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, service providers, and e-commerce enablers, providing a complete model of B2B2C,” stated Joe Wambugu, creator and CEO.

In late 2019, the startup launched engine one and onboarded 50 merchants. It released engine two with over 300 merchants after demonstrating the concept and receiving feedback.

In 2020, it embarked on a market proof of concept with Safaricom and EABL, gaining enough market feedback to develop engine three, which is currently ready to go live and can accommodate over one million merchants.

The rollout will be sponsored by a $400,000 investment from a group of business angels this month.

Cartnshop has made its platform available to some retailers in Botswana and Tanzania, but Wambugu says Kenya is the company’s major emphasis.

MTN Buys 144 Plots of Digital Land, Becomes First African Company to Make Metaverse Investment

Hassan Barakat
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MTN Buys 144 Plots of Digital Land, Becomes First African Company to Make Metaverse Investment

MTN has recently bought 144 plots of digital land in the Africarare metaverse Ubuntuland for an undisclosed sum.

According to a news statement on the company’s website, with this purchase, Africa’s largest telecom provider claimed to be the first African company to enter the metaverse.

The announcement states, “Africarare, which debuted in South Africa in October 2021, is the first African Virtual Reality metaverse containing digital land.”

Africarare and Mann Made Media are developing Ubuntuland, which will be available for public land sales later this year.

Ubuntuland will include the best of African art, fashion, entertainment, sport, technology, and innovation, as well as provide a platform for artists from all over the continent to exhibit their work.

Last year, Africarare sold out its debut Non-fungible token (NFT) art collection for about $50,000.

“The NFT space economy and Metaverses have seen tremendous expansion in the United States, Europe, and Asia, but there hasn’t been much from Africa.””

“We believe Africa has a huge opportunity to participate in this new world.” Mic Mann, the co-founder of Africarare, stated last year in an interview.

This move follows MTN’s recent brand revamp, which repositioned the company as a technology firm rather than a telecommunications one.

MTN noted in a statement that “this investment reflects MTN’s commitment to fostering African innovation.”

According to Bernice Samuels, MTN group’s chief marketing officer, MTN plans to boost its customer appeal through a succession of experiences integrated with consumer passion points, such as gaming and music, and its presence in the metaverse.

Along with MTN, M&C Saatchi Abel, a South African advertising agency, purchased its own plot of property in Ubuntuland.

Outside of Africa, firms including Samsung, Adida, and PricewaterhouseCoopers have also bought digital land holdings.

Cadana, Salary on-demand Startup Teams with Flutterwave to Expand into Nigeria

Boluwatife Aponmade
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Cadana, Salary on-demand Startup Teams with Flutterwave to Expand into Nigeria

Cadana is a salary on-demand company that has partnered with flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company to expand into Nigeria.

Cadana provides the services that allow small and large enterprises the ability to provide their employees with access to earned wages. Cadana also enables firms to digitize payroll, manage all people-related operations from onboarding through offboarding, and simplify compliance for People Managers. Following this partnership, Flutterwave processes payments for employers and employees on Cadana.

Unexpected bills might cause employees in Africa to become distressed from their daily tasks. Alternatives include short-term loans with interest rates as high as 300 percent and inadequate loan repayment schemes. Over 400 million African employees would benefit from a technology that allows them to obtain their earned earnings in real-time, pending employer permission. Cadana users may give their employees digital access to their earned money whenever they choose, rather than waiting until the end of the month.

Cadana assists African Human Resource Managers with digitizing payroll, statutory compliance, onboarding, offboarding, reports, time-tracking, and other processes. Cadana’s time-tracking technology instantly syncs with payroll from logging through payday, making disbursement easy for people management and small organizations.
“Banking, startups, telecoms, education, non-governmental institutions, and indeed all enterprises in Nigeria have a significant employee base that our modern salary on-demand payroll administration software can serve”, Albert Owusu-Asare, CEO and Co-founder of Cadana said.

“Our work in Ghana assisted us to take feedback from employees and businesses to improve our work process. People Managers and business owners longed for a solution that will reduce the month-on-month money troubles, make their employees more comfortable, and empower them to achieve more with their wages. Presently, we partner with Tendo, KEK group: one Ghana’s largest insurance brokers, and Float. We are excited to have been able to easily launch into any other African country with the help of Flutterwave”.

Ameer Shujjah, CTO and Co-founder of Cadana said, “Partnering with Flutterwave was easy and offers us more flexibility than imagined. We are happy to be in Nigeria and as we further in our growth journey, we hope to continue counting on Flutterwave’s help to empower Africans. Cadana is a world of solutions created to improve productivity for workers in Africa. We handle the employee’s money issues, giving them more time and to be able to achieve more with their time and growing businesses in Africa. We have plans to build helpful personal money management solutions along with our human resources management platform to make it easier for African workers to build more wealth easily from their wages”.

The Founder and CEO of Flutterwave added, “We are thrilled to enable startups like Cadana to expand fast across Africa. Cadana’s work of providing real-time salary access to employees in Africa is admirable and we are glad that they are accomplishing their aims using Flutterwave. Our work with startups is part of our vision to grow businesses. We are proud to support their growth and expansion into Nigeria. We are happy to see their progress as they support workers in Nigeria.

Guest Post For Tech With Africa – Content Contribution Guidelines

TWA Admin
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Guest Post For Tech With Africa – Content Contribution Guidelines

Here’s an opportunity to write a guest post for Tech With Africa (TWA). Tech With Africa is a tech journalism platform that decentralizes tech news for Africans. We tell stories about tech startups, tech opportunities, news, and everything that relates to technology.

If you are looking for a platform for showing your writing skills then TWA is a place to hone your skills. We at TWA, are looking for guest post writers who are passionate about their respective areas of tech interest and want to showcase their authorship in that space.

We are looking for fresh and creative content from authors who have proven and established track records in content writing. If you think your content will attract our readers, please feel free to contact us through any given medium of communication.

Our Areas of Focus

We cover the following topics on our website. If you think you have enough knowledge of any of these topics then please contact us.

  1. Cryptocurrency/Blockchain Technology
  2. Tech Careers
  3. Fintech
  4. Information Technology
  5. Startups
  6. Cybersecurity
  7. Internet of Things
  8. Gadgets/Product Reviews
  9. Artificial Intelligence/Virtual Reality
  10. Company Spotlight

What We Hate

  • Content that is written with the sole aim of promoting affiliate links
  • Self-promotional content
  • Content containing defaming material
  • Plagiarised content
  • Poorly written and badly formatted content

How to Pitch

Guest contributors looking to write for Tech With Africa should start off by telling us their idea with a few details. We want to see only the idea, not the finished product. Please include:

  • Up to three headline suggestions
  • An introduction of a few sentences so we can assess the standard of writing and context.
  • A basic, rough outline of what you intend to write, and the direction you want to take.

We’ll ask you to submit a draft if we accept your outline.

General Guest Post Requirements

  • Content should be specific

Guest contributions on Tech With Africa should serve our specific audience. We are all about providing quality content for emerging tech startups and entrepreneurs, and anything within that ecosystem.

  • Writers must provide actionable content

Our main requirement is that each article provides useful and actionable advice to our audience. This isn’t a place to flex your grammatical muscle. We prefer simple expressions that convey your write-up’s essence and help them take the desired action.

  • Submitted content should be in-depth, but concise

We don’t have fixed word counts, but our feature posts tend to run somewhere between 1000 and 2000 words. We want our materials to be informative and in-depth, but not so much that it becomes tedious or repetitive.

  • Other Requirements

Content should be 100% unique, creative, and of high quality. We do not accept previously published blog posts.

Important Note

We receive a large number of stories from guest contributors, so we make every effort to publish all of the articles, no matter how long it takes. A free post could take up to two weeks to publish but if you can’t wait that long, Tech With Africa also has a sponsored post option where you can promote your products through reviews in your own style without being constrained by our writing guidelines.

Components of the Featured Article

  1. In the first few paragraphs, the post should communicate what it’s about, why people should keep reading, and/or what they will get out of it. This is the “nut graf” or the “so-what graf” that lets the reader decide if it’s something important or relevant that they should keep reading.
  2. Separate the post into a few sections with subheadings.
  3. Bullets and lists are great but don’t go nuts. Definitely avoid lists within lists.
  4. All posts need at least one image to illustrate a point or how to do something. They can be screenshots, photos, gifs, youtube videos, etc. as long as they are relevant and royalty-free.
  5. Write in easy-to-understand language. Ensure that your post is written in plain language that any reader can understand. No technical jargon or unnecessary fillers.
  6. Double-check facts, grammar, spelling, image resolution, and URLs.
  7. All studies, quotes, data, etc. must be properly sourced and attributed with hyperlinks.
  8. Where possible, each featured post should link back to at least one previous Tech With Africa post.
  9. The final line should be a call-to-action, usually to share or comment on the post.

Notes for Guest Contributors

  • Send your pitch to techwithafrica@gmail.com
  • We need a brief bio for each guest contributor. A bio can/should have a link and one or more social media accounts.
  • We need the author to sign up for Gravatar if they are not already, and give us the email address associated with the account.
  • The article draft must be submitted in a Google Doc.
  • Don’t be discouraged by rewrites or requests for big changes. Don’t take it personally; we tend to do deeper edits than many other blogs.
  • Contributors must be online when the post goes live and must promote the post on their social media channels. Engage (respectfully) with the commenters.

Get more details about the website here: https://www.techwithafrica.com/

The Hatchery, a clean-tech incubator in South Africa, has formed a $330k collaboration with a Norwegian investment group.

TWA Admin
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The Hatchery, a clean-tech incubator in South Africa, has formed a $330k collaboration with a Norwegian investment group.

The Hatchery, an international clean-tech incubator that invests in technologies that increase productivity or profitability while reducing resource consumption or pollution, launched in Cape Town in November, with the goal of discovering and supporting cutting-edge entrepreneurs in areas such as smart utility metering, solar energy, and mobile financial platforms, according to Disrupt Africa.

The Hatchery will be able to expand its clean-tech infrastructure and support companies as they turn their ideas into viable businesses thanks to the cooperation with Valinor. Valinor is a Norwegian family-owned investment firm that makes early-stage investments in promising enterprises with the goal of leaving a lasting legacy.

The partners will pool their knowledge and resources to aid in the creation of infrastructure and technology that will incorporate sustainable frameworks to provide startups with dependable and inexpensive clean-tech resources.

“The world is facing code red in climate challenges, and we are trying to give a voice to this challenge with our recent collaboration with Valinor,” Jon Bøhmer, The Hatchery Global head said.

“Valinor is 100 percent committed to green investments and will indeed help the company fulfill its goal of supporting and developing startups.”

The alliance would help businesses get clean-tech investments faster by providing hands-on knowledge and milestone-based funding that will help founders focus on business growth and operations.

FinTechNGR Launches Innovative Platform, ‘The Start-Up Marketplace’

Hassan Barakat
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FinTechNGR Launches Innovative Platform, ‘The Start-Up Marketplace’

The FinTech Association of Nigeria (FintechNGR) has launched The Start-Up Marketplace, an innovative platform designed to provide start-ups in the fintech ecosystem with free and heavily discounted services in funding, legal, infrastructure, cybersecurity, data privacy, business development, and a variety of other areas, in order to help them grow faster.

Ade Bajomo, President, FinTechNGR, and the Executive Director, Information Technology and Operations at Access Bank Plc made this announcement at the association’s first conference of the year, tagged ‘Fintech Outlook 2022’.

He reiterated that “The Start-Up Marketplace will aid in the development and depth of Nigeria’s FinTech talent pool.”

“The platform will also encourage research and development to elevate innovators and start-ups, foster a supportive regulatory environment to grow the industry, facilitate local investors’ participation in FinTech funding, and position local start-ups and innovators to build and develop durable and strategic intellectual properties,” he added.

The rising rate of investment in Fintech start-ups demonstrates how much the industry has piqued the interest of investors and Venture Capitalists who perceive the industry’s growth and resiliency potential.

FinTechs dominated fundraising in Africa in 2021, accounting for about $3 billion of the roughly $5 billion raised by African digital start-ups.

Nigerian start-ups raised $1.09 billion in the same year, accounting for 73.5 percent of the $1.37 billion raised by start-ups worldwide.

Daniel Awe, the Head of the Africa Fintech Foundry, highlighted increased innovation as a crucial cause for the rising interest.

“We’re already seeing FinTechs innovate in areas like greentech, digital insurance, blockchain, and financial inclusion, to name a few.”

“That said, we must continue to create strategic alliances with other ecosystem participants in order to develop game-changing innovative solutions and uncover new opportunities for growth, consumer pleasure, and improved business practices.”

The Foundry is contributing to this growth by launching businesses that can compete in a variety of industry verticals by offering new and enhanced digital products to end-users, allowing for the establishment of new markets.”

The virtual event also revealed trends and forecasts across FinTech verticals, including lending, payment, mobile money, banking, infrastructure, regulation, partnerships, skillsets, wealthtech, insurtech, cybersecurity, data privacy, open banking, decentralised finance, and other sectors.

NACETEM Promotes The Use of Technology in Agriculture to Reduce Post-Harvest Losses

Hassan Barakat
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NACETEM Promotes The Use of Technology in Agriculture to Reduce Post-Harvest Losses

Prof. Okechukwu Ukwuoma, Director-General of the National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), has stressed the importance of incorporating and adapting technology into agricultural operations in order to increase production and reduce post-harvest losses.

Although Nigeria provided around 51% of West Africa’s overall food supply, post-harvest losses have climbed to an estimated N3.5 trillion per year, according to Ukwuoma.

He spoke at a stakeholders workshop in Nasarawa State on the role of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) in agricultural production and food security in Nigeria.

This is bad for the country, he said, as he called for an immediate halt to the trend so that agriculture can become a viable tool for Nigeria’s long-term growth.

Ubi Okoi, Director, Technical Services, Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), Calabar, remarked that with the present changes in global agricultural technical improvement, the workshop has become very timely for enhanced service delivery in the years to come.

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