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Amitruck, Kenya-Based Startup, Raises $4 Million, Expands Into Uganda, and Tanzania

Hassan Barakat
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Amitruck, Kenya-Based Startup, Raises $4 Million, Expands Into Uganda, and Tanzania

Amitruck, a Kenyan tech-enabled logistics platform, offers solutions to help the shipping sector run more smoothly.

After raising $4 million in initial capital (increasing the total funds raised to $5 million), the firm, which has had a strong start in Kenya, plans to enhance its technical, operational, and sales teams in order to prepare for expansion into Tanzania and Uganda.

The intentions come as it appears to be the go-to platform for shippers and transporters operating in-country and cross-border business in the region.

The seed round led by Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), included Dynamo Ventures, Rackhouse Venture Capital, Flexport Inc, Knuru Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Uncovered Fund, and other angel investors.

The digital logistics platform that launched in 2019, connects shippers with carriers who operate trucks, vans, tuk-tuks (three-wheelers), pickup trucks, and motorcycles, allowing them to negotiate haulage prices.

The software also allows shippers to modify services, such as adding off-loading fees.

The site offers information such as a transporter’s rating and the average number of trips made, which aids shippers in narrowing down their options.

Once all sides have reached an agreement, the process can proceed.

Unilever, L’Oréal; a beauty brand, SkyGarden; an e-commerce platform, and Twiga; a fresh produce marketplace are among Amitruck’s B2B customers in Kenya.

They also work with individual consumers, such as those who are relocating.

Amitruck’s partners insure the products they transport. In addition, the startup offers operational assistance.

“When you connect with us, you essentially offload the headache of transportation,” Amitruck founder and chief executive officer Mark Mwangi explained.

Mwangi is upbeat about the future, claiming that the logistics industry has great prospects for businesses like his who are seeking to restore order to the market.

In his trip, he will face competition from other firms such as Lori Systems and Sendy, which began in Kenya before moving to other African countries, and Kobo360, which is based in Nigeria.

Amitruck has over 8,000 cars registered on its platform, and Mwangi claims that income increased by 1,000 percent in 2021, up from 400 percent the year before, as COVID highlighted the need to automate supply chain procedures.

Last year, the company was approved into the JICA-backed Ninja Accelerator program, as well as AbInbev’s Budstart Accelerator and Google’s Black Founders Fund Accelerator, all of which give non-dilutive finance.

“This is a huge opportunity.” The intermediaries still control the majority of this market. Our clients’ personal vehicles trailed closely after.

In Africa, 99 percent of commodities must be transported by car. In terms of waterways and air, we don’t use them all that much.

And, at the moment, moving such goods can cost up to five times as much as it does in more established markets,” Mwangi explained.

Africa’s transportation and logistics sector is predicted to boom, especially after the continent’s already-signed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) takes effect, making it the world’s largest single market.

Tanzanian Fintech Raises $10M Plans To Enter 12 More African Countries

Boluwatife Aponmade
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Tanzanian Fintech Raises $10M Plans To Enter 12 More African Countries

A Tanzanian fintech startup said it has been able to raise $10 million in a recent funding round and plans to use the funds to sponsor its expansion into 12 other African countries.

The Tanzanian fintech startup is called Nala. Nala is an app that enables payments from the U.K to African countries. Nala recently said it was able to raise $10 million in a funding round that had the backing of Amplo, Accel, and Bessemer Partners. Some of the angel investors that participated in the funding round are Vladimir Tenev, Founder of Robinhood, and Jonas Huckestein, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Monzo.

From the reports of news published by Fintechnews Africa, the Tanzanian fintech app already allows payments from the United Kingdom to five African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ghana.

Meanwhile, after the just concluded fundraising, Nala is set to extend into twelve more African countries by the end of 2022, according to the news report.

The publication also revealed that Nala has started directing a part of its app suitable for people in business that will like to make payments to Africa. Furthermore, this new feature is made such that the app already comes with a multi-currency account function attached to it which enables users in the region to save local African currencies when abroad, the publication read.

Co-founder and CEO of Nala, Benjamin Fernandes said in a comment following the funding round why his firm decided to build this app.

“Payments in Africa are built 1%. It’s 2022 and Africa remains the most expensive place in the world to send money in and out of, until this changes, we are limited by the opportunities or trade across the continent. In the next 5 years, while logistics get better, more places around the world are going to trade in and out of Africa, we are positioning ourselves to be at the forefront of this change”, he said.

Nestcoin Secures $6.45M Pre-Seed to Accelerate Crypto and Web3 Adoption in Africa, Introduce its DeFi Projects

Hassan Barakat
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Nestcoin Secures $6.45M Pre-Seed to Accelerate Crypto and Web3 Adoption in Africa, Introduce its DeFi Projects

Nestcoin, a firm that produces, operates, and invests in web3 applications, and founded last November, has secured a $6.45 million pre-seed round.

Two of the most important drivers of crypto adoption on the continent are peer-to-peer transactions and retail trade. Yele Bademosi and Taiwo Orilogbon, the founders of Nestcoin, previously spearheaded the charge at Bundle Africa, one of the continent’s most well-known crypto trading platforms.

When Bademosi decided to start Bundle as CEO in 2019, he was the director of Binance Labs in Africa, handling the incubation and development of blockchain initiatives. The company’s chief technical officer was Orilogbon.

The Digital Currency Group can help you understand how Nestcoin works (DCG). LUNO, CoinDesk, and Bitso are among the more than 60 crypto and blockchain businesses and assets held by the Connecticut-based venture capital and holding company.

However, while DCG concentrates on western markets and developing custodial solutions for HNIs and institutional clients, Nestcoin primarily develops, invests in, and manages web3 and non-custodial products that are more accessible to regular people in frontier countries.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi), media, digital art, and gaming are all covered under Nestcoin’s offerings.

Last year, the business, which Bademosi defines as a venture collaborative, formed its Breach media department to provide bite-sized and educational crypto material for the typical African.

Metaverse Magna (MVM), a gaming guild that introduces members to the world of play-to-earn crypto-powered games like Axie Infinity, was also established.

Since 2020, the NFT-based online video game produced by Sky Mavis has been a hit, but it is costly to play.

MVM has purchased Axies and loaned them to members of its guild, with a revenue-sharing agreement in place. According to the firm, these individuals can earn up to $1,000 each month in the end.

MVM has received almost 2,000 applications since its start, according to Bademosi. However, just 400 gamers are now using the platform, which he hopes to raise to 1,000 by the end of the year.

Nestcoin also plans to launch its DeFi projects in the second quarter of this year.

In addition, the company will look into ways for platform content providers to earn cryptocurrency while educating the site’s 6,000 customers through defined learning courses.

The company’s pre-seed round, which is now the second-biggest in Africa and the largest in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, will provide it with the resources it needs to develop these and other products in its pipeline.

A portion of the funding will be used to sponsor web3 projects. The company has done so in a few initiatives, but the only one that has been made public is Lazerpay, which allows businesses to accept crypto payments. It recently supported AltSchool Africa, a startup that introduces Africans to software engineering and web3 courses like blockchain.

Nestcoin has also become involved in other projects, such as cooperating with Bitsika, a crypto-exchange platform, to produce a social token for Davido, an African musician.

Nestcoin, according to Bademosi, may form an independent fund to invest in and participate in such partnerships and projects in the future.

With employees in nine countries, the company has attracted key web3 and traditional investors to support its objective.

Distributed Global, Alter Global, Serena Ventures, A&T Capital, MSA Capital, 4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, Goat.vc, Old Fashion Research, CMT Digital, Electric Capital, Social Capital, CoinFund, gumi Cryptos Capital, and DeFi Alliance are among them, while Ventures Platform, Future Africa, and Voltron Capital are among the local investors in the round.

Opibus an Energy Coy Launches First Electric Bus, Targets African Market

Abidemi Ogunyemi-Aderibigbe
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Opibus an Energy Coy Launches First Electric Bus, Targets African Market

 Opibus is a Swedish-Kenyan energy company that recently introduced its first electric bus with the African market in focus. This is the first African-designed and manufactured electric bus in Kenya.

Opibus is aiming at bringing clean energy to the public transportation sector in the African continent.

The emergence of the Opibus electric bus and its benefits.

According to a report by VOA, Opibus which happens to be Kenya’s first company to make electric motorcycles plans to launch the bus commercially in a few months. It will be bringing it across the African markets by 2023.

Benjamin Maina, one of the drivers of the newly invented bus describes the feeling of having to drive such an invention as amazing.

However, considering how other vehicles jostle for space amidst the belching cloud of smoke in the streets, this is a great invention.

Benjamin describes how beneficial it is to everyone and Africans at large stating that

  • Firstly, the electric bus is a different experience when you compare to fossil fuel vehicles
  • Secondly, it is quite silent and sleek considering the vibration and noise from fossil fuel vehicles
  • Thirdly, the bus will bring about a reduction in noise pollution as well air pollution

Across the African continent including Kenya, public transport is mostly run informally. In other words, the enforcement of emission standards is rare making vehicles very pollutive.

Jane Akumu, a Sustainable Mobility expert at the UN Environment Program explains how heavy-duty vehicles which are buses are big contributors to pollution. 

He said ” looking at our cities, heavy-duty vehicles which are buses and trucks  are the bulk producers of pollution”

To clarify, these vehicles are also an opportunity because how could we switch to cleaner modes without them. We need mass transport to be sustainable to make cities more sustainable.

In conclusion, experts say Africa’s electric car market is a great investment opportunity and will enhance the creation of new jobs.

 

 

MTN Soars on Nigeria Mobile Money Surge, Acquires 5G Licence

Hassan Barakat
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MTN Soars on Nigeria Mobile Money Surge, Acquires 5G Licence

On Monday, shares in the MTN group shot up by almost a tenth.

MTN Nigeria, which accounts for a third of the company’s revenue, announced on Monday that mobile money service customers increased by 102 % to 9.4 million, with 4.8 million new subscribers added for the entire year ending in December 2021.

This expansion, according to MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola, “provides a solid framework on which to launch the MoMo payment service bank (PSB), for which we have got preliminary clearance.”

The stock market reacted positively to the news, with MTN shares rising 10.2 % to R192.12, giving it a market capitalization of R345 billion.

All of this comes after MTN Nigeria lost more than a tenth of its subscriber base last year as a result of new restrictions and a moratorium on new SIM cards, signaling the interest of investors in new sectors of business such as fintech.

MTN Nigeria, the company’s most profitable arm, claims that its mobile subscriber count declined by more than double digits, or 8 million, in 2021, due to governmental limits on new SIM activations.

MTN Nigeria stated that mobile subscriptions decreased 10.6% to 68.5 million in the year to end-December, however, there was modest improvement in activity among current users, with service revenue up 23.3 % to N1.65 trillion (R61bn).

According to Roy Mutooni, an analyst at Absa Asset Management, investors were not concerned about the loss of customers because it was already known that new SIM registration restrictions would result in a drop in subscribers.

The Nigerian Communications Commission halted the sale and activation of new SIM cards in December 2020, ordering operators to update registration records with national identity numbers for each SIM in the country.

In April 2021 however, the ban on new SIM activations was lifted.

MTN Nigeria stated it added about 1 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2021, bringing the total number of active data subscribers to 34.3 million.

Apart from being enthusiastic about MTN’s mobile money operation, Mutooni praised the Nigerian company for “growing earnings fast despite not signing up new users.”

“In addition, the upgrade to service revenue growth of over 20% for the medium term was a huge plus.”

MTN has pushed for more data usage and has invested considerably in its infrastructure, hastening the installation of its 4G network, which currently reaches 70% of Nigeria’s population.

Data revenue increased by 55.3 percent in 2021, growing even further in the fourth quarter as coverage improved, and overall smartphone penetration in the country increased.

MTN also announced in December that it had purchased a 5G license in Nigeria, allegedly for R4.4 billion. “Future network performance will be based on the foundation of 5G,” Toriola stated.

“Being at the forefront of bringing technical breakthroughs to as many Nigerians as possible is an exciting opportunity,” he remarked.

According to MTN Nigeria, digital adoption is continuing to grow as customers use more digital products and services, a trend enhanced by Covid-19.

Digital revenue increased by 61.2 %, while active users on Ayoba, the company’s instant messaging network, increased by 172.9 % to 3.8 million.

Nigeria’s AltSchool Raises $1M Pre-Seed To Build An Alternative School For Africans

Boluwatife Aponmade
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0
Nigeria’s AltSchool Raises $1M Pre-Seed To Build An Alternative School For Africans

One would be out of context to say they haven’t noticed the trend in Lagos, Africa’s startup capital, where mid-level and senior-level engineers leave the country in droves to seek better-paying opportunities in firms outside Africa.

According to a report by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 22% increase in the demand for software engineers between 2020 and 2030. This figure is larger than the 4% average for other careers.

Andela has been a central key to putting the continent’s tech talent globally. Ever since the unicorn changed its business type to solely a marketplace focusing on senior developers, other firms like AltSchool Africa are trying to fill one of the holes it left by training people to become junior-level to mid-level engineers.

AltSchool, which is not to be mistaken with the U.S AltSchool, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to upgrade its efforts, Adewale Yusuf, the chief executive officer said to TechCrunch. Adewale founded AltSchool with Akintunde Sultan and Opeyemi Awoyemi in October 2020.

In 2020, Yusuf thought about the idea of establishing a physical campus where he and his team can train software engineers to gain international opportunities. Adewale met with stakeholders of education at a public university in Ife, a neighboring town near Lagos to achieve this aim, but the goal never materialized.

After the first trial, the team decided to focus on upgrading sister-company and Techstars-backed TalentQL and launching products like Pipeline, which trained mid-level engineers, building them into senior engineers and making a way for them in international companies. Upon further research, Yusuf realized what needed to be done to make his old idea work; a remote-centric approach.

Nigeria is a country with about 200 million population, with 60% of this population below the age of 25. The rate of unemployment in this country is at 34% and continues to increase leaving a lot of university graduates at its trail. Adewale believes that the regular schooling setting is not enough to get graduates decent jobs.
AltSchool proffers a solution as an online school with the scheme to improve non-technical people with soft skills while partnering with higher institutions to give diploma certificates.

Adewale Yusuf said, “You may need a B.Sc certificate if you want to be a doctor, nurse, or some other professions, but when it comes to being a software engineer or earning digital skills, you do not need it.”

“We need to find a shortcut for people whereby they will be able to make money and provide for their family and add value to the economy. That is one of the reasons AltSchool was launched, because if a lot of people can have marketable skills, then I think we can solve a massive problem in the market”, the CEO continued.

It was specified on the company’s website that participants must have a high school certificate and be computer literate to participate in its program.

Thus far, more than 8,000 people have applied to AltSchool, the application fee is #10,000 to participate in AltSchool’s software engineering program which will start in April. These applications came from 19 countries of which 14 are African countries, Yusuf said the company received most of the applications from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, and Botswana.

AltSchool was able to pull in that figure through words of mouth while gathering some numbers of followers on social media. Some popular personalities from the tech and music industry are also sponsoring students through the program, while others are cutting checks.

Some of these popular celebrities are Co-founder and CEO of Flutterwave: Olugbenga Agboola (GB), Co-founder and CEO of Paystack: Shola Akinlade, Folarin Falana (Falzthebadguy), a popular Nigerian artiste, and Akitoye Balogun, also a Nigerian artiste known as Ajebutter22. The VCs in the pre-seed round include Voltron Capital, Nestcoin, Pledges, and Odba VC.

AltSchool aims to utilize the investment to build its content and curriculum, infrastructure, technology, and community ideas where students can meet offline to network and grow together.

YFS Receives $7M to Scale Its On-Demand Logistics and Delivery Business Across MENA

Hassan Barakat
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YFS Receives $7M to Scale Its On-Demand Logistics and Delivery Business Across MENA

Yalla Fel Sekka (YFS), a Middle East and North African e-commerce and logistics company that is establishing a network of dark stores and micro-warehouses across Egypt, has received $7 million in a Series A investment.

YFS was founded by Khashayar Mahdavi and Yasmine Abdel Karim in 2020, right before the pandemic hit and customer behavior moved toward requiring speedier deliveries owing to pandemic-induced lockdown.

With rising client activity, e-commerce companies in North Africa tried to implement popular models like Gopuff, Gorillas, and Flint’s fast commerce.

However, unlike in the West, Egypt’s e-commerce infrastructure isn’t ready to handle the high demand and instability that comes with rapid commerce.

YFS is a B2B2C delivery logistics company that links with a client’s backend, such as a supermarket so that anytime a customer places an online order, the company picks it up from a dark store designed to retain its clients’ merchandise and delivers it.

The software also offers fleet management, as well as dark store and micro-warehouse management, to businesses in a variety of industries, including grocery, pharmacies, and e-commerce.

“What sets us different is our ability to integrate operational efficiency and innovation with technology to reduce costs and increase productivity,” Khashayar Mahdavi, co-founder, and chief strategy officer told TechCrunch.

“And, given our economic and financial backgrounds, we’ve always placed a strong emphasis on unit economics.”

“So that’s what we’ve attempted to do here: bring innovation into this field while focusing on productivity and unit economics, and use distributed logistics services to serve our clients really quickly.”

YFS maintains a fleet of 1,000 active motorcycle and van drivers, with another 3,000 on the waiting list.

According to CEO Abdel Karim, these drivers complete 10,000 orders every day, and the company’s gross merchandise volume is rising at a monthly pace of 20%, with a customer retention rate of over 90%.

She further claimed that in just 18 months, YFS has performed two million deliveries in five Egyptian cities — Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Mansoura, and Tanta — all while maintaining a positive gross margin.

Flybridge Ventures and I Squared Capital provided $2.5 million in seed funding to the founders, who have worked in investment banking and oil and gas.

These investors, including lead investor DisruptAD, ADQ’s venture platform, and Kuwait-based Kharafi, funded the company again in this round.

The new funds will be used to increase YFS’s presence in cities across Egypt and the MENA region. Abdel Karim added that the company would improve its dark store management as it plans to open 20 to 40 dark stores this year.

For Mahdavi, the company will begin a robust growth phase now that it has a proof of concept.

“What’s crucial to note is that anything involving quick commerce or instant delivery necessitates a new type of ground infrastructure to be proximate to your customers, technology, and operations,” he said.

“All of that is in stark contrast to the infrastructure we saw when we weren’t dealing with fast trade.” But today, for YFS, it’s all about becoming the major player and leader in providing these logistics services for commerce.”

Bellafricana Gets N60 Million Export Grant from ED, Nigerian Export Promotion Council

Hassan Barakat
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Bellafricana Gets N60 Million Export Grant from ED, Nigerian Export Promotion Council

Olusegun Awolowo, the immediate former Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), recently supported Bellafricana members with N60 million award in order to enable small and medium-sized businesses compete favourably and expand.

Bellafricana is a tech-enabled network that serves as a platform for Nigerian and African creative entrepreneurs in a variety of industries, assisting them in gaining attention, increasing sales, and obtaining the necessary business support and structure to expand their businesses.

 

Bukky Asehinde, CEO of Bellafricana, said the opportunity is meant to support SMEs through the Export Development Fund (EDF) via the Export Expansion Facility Programme [EEFP], which awarded an N60 million grant to the 15 awardees of the third ACE Awards, as well as other Bellafricana members with export potential.

The EEFP aims to democratise exporter discovery and access to relevant government growth incentives.

The initiative supports businesses in Nigeria that have at least one international customer or are working to acquire international customers, as well as businesses that provide services that an export business may require, by providing these businesses with a variety of incentives to expand their reach and become exporters.

EEFP, which was established as part of Awolowo’s legacy to promote Nigeria’s export industry, has served as a catalyst for the country’s active and export-ready enterprises.

Asehinde went on to say that Awolowo had been supportive of the growth and expansion of not only Bellafricana but also her members through the NEPC, as well as giving more prominence to African-owned creative enterprises.

She went on to say that Awolowo has sponsored and supported over 5000 creatives through NEPC and that he is now wrapping up with this large award to help creative enterprises scale up while strengthening the country’s export economy.

A grant recipient praised Awolowo for believing in Nigerian creative businesses and assisting them in expanding beyond the country’s borders.

Stitch Offers Early-Stage African Fintechs a Chance to Showcase to Investors

Abidemi Ogunyemi-Aderibigbe
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Stitch Offers Early-Stage African Fintechs a Chance to Showcase to Investors

Stitch a South African API fintech startup is partnering with Paystack and Disrupt Africa to host a startup showcase. This is an avenue for early-stage fintech across the continent to pitch their solutions to local and global investors and also access support.

The stitch API (live in Nigeria and South Africa) allows developers to connect their users’ financial accounts in a few minutes. They can verify identity, view transactions and balance data, and enable instant fraud-free bank payment.

This infrastructure allows companies to easily innovate more, launch and scale financial products and services. This includes personal finance, insurance, lending, e-commerce, payments, wealth management, and more.

Stitch also allows fintechs to work with traditional financial institutions in a more compliant and safer way.

Stitch extended its seed round to $6 million in October and now intends to do its bits in helping other fintechs raise capital and grow their businesses.

The startup is hosting a meetup for global fintech investors who wants to learn more about the fintech space. It will hold by the end of February to highlight high-growth and early-stage startups across Africa.

Application for the Stitch Showcase

The application is opened to early-stage (pre-Series A) fintech or embedded financial companies from Anglophone African markets. Countries like Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Eygpt, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Participants will receive pitch support, and access office hours with the Stitch team based on their needs. Selected startups operating in Nigeria and South Africa will be given 6 months of free access to Stitch API. Also, all that apply will get access free for two months.

Furthermore, there will be a 1-hour workshop with the Paystack team that focuses on fundraising and growth. Startups in South Africa,  Nigeria, and Ghana will get payment processing free from Paystack. Successful participants will also feature in post-event coverage on Disrupt Africa.

The startup is on a mission to make it easier for fintech businesses on the African continent to launch and scale innovative solutions. Therefore, the showcase is a way to leverage its network and resources to continue on the path of its mission.

In conclusion, the showcase will hold by the 25th of February in Cape town and applications are open until 10th February at 11:59 PM (SAST).

To apply, you can use this link. 

 

Microsoft Leap Data Analyst Apprenticeship Program

Hassan Barakat
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0
Microsoft Leap Data Analyst Apprenticeship Program

At Microsoft, we are well aware that there are numerous routes into the technology business and into our company.

We’re always searching for innovative methods to break down traditional entry barriers for talent and to capitalize on the skills and experiences of those who haven’t followed standard academic courses.

You would have heard about tech and data analysis.

A data analyst uses data analysis technologies to extract useful information from data and data sources. These findings, which are derived from raw data, assist their employers or clients in making informed business decisions by discovering numerous insights, facts, and trends.

Are you interested in becoming a Data Analyst?

Do you stay in Lagos or will be able to move to Lagos during the program?

Here is an opportunity to apply to the Data Analyst Apprenticeship Program with Microsoft Leap.

Eligibility

  • A flair for numbers or basic mathematics skills.
  • Basic knowledge of any of Microsoft Excel, Power BI or Tableau, etc.
  • Accuracy and attention to detail.
  • Written and verbal communication skills.
  • Must have completed the National Youth Service Corps obligation or are exempt.
  • Completed a tertiary degree in a numerate field.
  • Female-only cohort.
  • The Leap Program is an intensive 16-week program. While in the program, participants are discouraged from taking on extra professional responsibilities.

Selected individuals will be invited to interview for the Leap Program

  • The interview process will consist of two 45-minute online interviews.
  • Interview questions will focus on the following areas:
  1. Technical skills
  2. Collaborative skills
  3. Problem-solving skills

Visit the official page of Microsoft Leap to read more and apply

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