Africa Start-up and Technology Developments: October 2021
In this report developed by our research arm, we take a look at the latest developments by Africa’s technology start-ups. Specifically, the regional expansions and acquisitions.
In October 2021, African technology companies raised $81.1 million USD over 38 funding rounds (excluding grants, prizes and non-equity assistance). Of these, the largest was AutoChek’s seed funding round in which the online vehicle marketplace secured $13.1 million USD. The funding round was co-led by TLCom Capital Partners and 4DX Ventures, and included participation from Enza Capital, Lateral Capital, Golden Palm Investments, Mobility 54 Investment SAS and ASK Capital. This funding round was closed shortly after the company acquired Cheki, another vehicle marketplace operating in Kenya and Tanzania.
By comparison, in the previous month, African technology companies secured $413.2 million USD over 33 funding rounds. 2 record-breaking deals contributed to this amount: Wave’s $200 million USD Series A funding round, and MNT-Halan’s $120 million USD seed funding round.
Let’s look at the significant developments aside from deals that happened in October 2021 across Africa.
Acquisitions
In October 2021, there were 2 reported acquisitions in Africa’s tech landscape. We saw Alerzo, a Nigerian providing transport and logistics solution to Nigerian retailers (90% of whom are women) in the informal sector, acquire Shago Payments. Shago is a FinTech operating in the Nigerian space providing bill and utility payments through agents. This acquisition is of special interest to us as both are The Baobab Network portfolio companies. Stay tuned for an interview with Shago Payments founder, Seb Enachi, to learn more about how this came to be.
MFS Africa, a pan-African digital payments gateway acquired Baxi, a Nigerian virtual card solution based in Nigeria, a Capricorn Digital product. At the time of writing (November 12th 2021), MFS Africa has just secured $100 million USD in Series C funding, split between $70 million in equity and $30 million in debt financing, to recruit more global talent, power its Governance, Risks and Compliance (GRC) functions, and continue to expand.
Regional Expansions
The first of October’s expansions was by Peach Payments, a South African FinTech, into the island nation of Mauritius. Peach Payments was founded in 2012 and expanded into Kenya in 2018.
Next was Kenya’s MarketForce360, a sales and distribution management solution out of Kenya, entering the Nigerian market. The company recently raised over US$2 million in pre-Series A funding, and this is its first foray into other markets.
Finally, Digs Connect, a South African PropTech achieved expansion into 30 other countries globally via a partnership with student.com, a property booking site for travelling students.
This month, we saw no exits and no new product launches. As it is now the final quarter of the year, perhaps some start-ups are using this time to re-calibrate, wrap up the year and plan for 2022?
Stay tuned for the report to see what happens in November.
Africa Start-up and Technology Developments: October 2021
In this report from our research branch, we look at the latest developments from Africa’s technology start-ups. Specifically, regional expansions and acquisitions in October 2021. Last month, African technology companies raised $81.1 million USD over 38 funding rounds (excluding grants, prizes and non-equity assistance). Of these, the largest was AutoChek’s seed funding round in which the online vehicle marketplace secured $13.1 million USD. The funding round was co-led by TLCom Capital Partners and 4DX Ventures, and included participation from Enza Capital, Lateral Capital, Golden Palm Investments, Mobility 54 Investment SAS and ASK Capital. This funding round was closed shortly after the company acquired Cheki, another vehicle marketplace operating in Kenya and Tanzania.
By comparison, in September, African technology companies secured $413.2 million USD over 33 funding rounds. Two record-breaking deals contributed to this amount: Wave‘s $200 million USD Series A funding round, and MNT-Halan’s $120 million USD seed funding round.
Let’s look at the significant developments aside from deals that happened in October 2021 across Africa.
Acquisitions
In October 2021, there were 2 reported acquisitions in Africa’s tech landscape. We saw Alerzo, a Nigerian providing transport and logistics solution to Nigerian retailers (90% of whom are women) in the informal sector, acquire Shago Payments. Shago is a FinTech operating in the Nigerian space providing bill and utility payments through agents. This acquisition is of special interest to us as both are The Baobab Network portfolio companies. Stay tuned for an interview with Shago Payments founder, Seb Enachi, to learn more about how this came to be.
MFS Africa, a pan-African digital payments gateway acquired Baxi, a Nigerian virtual card solution based in Nigeria, a Capricorn Digital product. At the time of writing (November 12th 2021), MFS Africa has just secured $100 million USD in Series C funding. This was split as $70 million in equity and $30 million in debt financing. The funding will be used to recruit more global talent, power its Governance, Risks and Compliance (GRC) functions, and continue expansion.
Regional Expansions
The first of October’s expansions was by Peach Payments, a South African FinTech, into the island nation of Mauritius. Peach Payments was founded in 2012 and expanded into Kenya in 2018.
Next was Kenya’s MarketForce360, a sales and distribution management solution out of Kenya, entering the Nigerian market. The company recently raised over US$2 million in pre-Series A funding, and this is its first foray into other markets.
Finally, Digs Connect, a South African PropTech achieved expansion into 30 other countries. This came about as a result of a partnership with student.com, a property booking site for travelling students.
This month, we saw no exits and no new product launches. As it is now the final quarter of the year, perhaps some start-ups are using this time to re-calibrate, wrap up the year, and plan for 2022?
Stay tuned for the next report on regional expansions and acquisitions by technology start-ups in Africa in November.