Category: east africa
Nigeria’s Autochek acquires Cheki Kenya and Uganda from ROAM Africa
Nigerian automotive tech company Autochek today is announcing the acquisition of Cheki Kenya and Uganda from Ringier One Africa Media (ROAM) for an undisclosed amount. Per a statement, Autochek will finalize the deal in the coming weeks. With the acquisition, Autochek completes its expansion into East Africa and follows the…
Read More
Kenya’s Wapi Pay raises $2.2M pre-seed for cross-border payments between Africa and Asia
According to the World Bank, it is more expensive to send money to sub-Saharan African than to any region in the world. It is also the most expensive region to send money from. In Q1 2020, people spent an average of 8.9% to send money to the region, much higher…
Read More
Ivorian fintech Julaya raises $2M to digitize business payments in Francophone Africa
There are over 1 billion mobile money accounts globally. Africa leads the way in transaction value and volume thanks to M-Pesa, largely used in East Africa. Other regions across the continent are also growing fast. In 2019, West Africa reported the most live mobile money services in any region, with…
Read More
Kenya’s MarketForce raises $2M, plans to focus on its B2B retail marketplace RejaReja
A 2016 study by global consultancy PwC states that an estimated 90% of sales in Africa’s major economies come through informal channels like markets and kiosks. In sub-Saharan Africa, 90% of these household retail transactions are carried out via a network of about 100 million MSMEs. Africa’s retail payments, mostly…
Read More
Middle East and Africa will reap benefits from Nuwa Capital’s newest fund
Nuwa Capital, a venture capital firm based in Dubai and Riyadh, announced the first close of its $100 million NVFI fund in February. The close was three-quarters of the target and was done in less than a year following the firm’s launch in February 2020. According to the firm, the…
Read More
BuffaloGrid and Techfugees launch education, solar charging initiative for refugees, aim to raise $3M
BuffaloGrid, a startup that provides phone charging and digital content to people in off-grid environments, is teaming up with the Techfugees refugee non-profit to provid free educational content and device charging to displaced people across East Africa and the Middle-East. The initial service will see solar-powered ‘BuffaloGrid Hubs’ deployed in…
Read More