Acumen’s Kawasafi Fund has raised $75 million
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| Acumen’s Kawasafi Fund has raised $75 million to scale the clean energy sector in East Africa. Kawasafi Fund is the first for-profit fund by impact investment organization, Acumen. The fund was launched in 2017 and has invested $21 million to date. One of its first investments is d.Light, one of the many Africa-focused solar companies which recently closed $41 million in Series E funding. d.Light has raised $179 million to date. Solar startups continue to raise a ton of capital mostly from impact investors and development agencies. |
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| Stripe has acquired Touchtech Payments, an Ireland-based fintech startup cofounded by Nigerian, Shekinah Adewumi. Touchtech provides complaint solutions to financial institutions that adheres to regulations such as PSD2, Open Banking and 3DS 2.0. Touchtech Payments was founded in 2014 by Shekinah Adewunmi, Niall Hogan and Joseph Kuye (who is no longer with the team). Before it got acquired, Touchtech raised no less than $1.4 million mostly from state-owned Enterprise Ireland which supports startups and helps entrepreneurs launch businesses in Ireland. Stripe is also an active investor in African startups such as Paystack. |
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Applications are now open to Venture Cup Nigeria, a startup competition put together by Lion Science Park which is owned by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Startup founders across Nigeria can apply here before May 15. There’s a grand prize of 1 million naira equity-free funding. The University of Nsukka is one of the very few Nigerian universities with a startup hub.
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Dakar Angels Network will be making four investments every year with investment tickets of $20k – $100k, founder Marième Diop told VentureBurn . The network is seeking tech startups that are less than five years old with significant market opportunities in francophone Africa and will take equity of up to 10%. The network has already invested $25,000 in Ivorien clean tech startup, Coliba.
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Yesterday, the British High Commission to Nigeria and EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access) hosted fintech operators, investors, policymakers and hubs in an interactive session that explored the ways in which the Nigerian fintech ecosystem could grow financial inclusion. Also the six awardees of the Fintech Challenge Fund were announced. They were Extramile Africa, Social Lender, Capricorn Digital, Riby Finance, CredPal and Smarteller. In the next few days we will release pictures and videos from the event. In the meantime, you can catch a recap of the event on TechCabal and EFInA’s Twitter timelines.
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The CDC Group is backing talent company, TheBoardRoom Africa with a £1.6 million investment. The company’s focus is to improve women representation in African boardrooms and it wants to double representation by 2028. The funding will enable TBR Africa to expand its membership and client base across the continent. This is quite exciting for me because I recently found data while writing this article about women representation in the boardroom and on management teams. Women representation in the boardroom across Africa for tech, telco and media companies is just 15%. The percentage of women drops as one moves up the ranks in tech and other related businesses across Africa.
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| Steve Okeyo has joined Telkom Kenya as the Managing Director of its mobile division. Okeyo is a 20-year sales and marketing professional with senior management experience in the Telco and FMCG industries. He is the former Director for Regional Sales & Operations at Safaricom and is also a visiting Professor of Marketing at ALU Business School in Kigali. |
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| Clarification: Yesterday we mentioned in the blurb about the Lambda School Africa Pilot that the school’s website stated that students only begin to pay back tuition fees when they start earning upwards of $50,000. While this is true, there’s a slightly different arrangement for the Africa program. African students start to pay 10% of their income for five years when they begin earning $15,000 a year. Please find the FAQ here to help understand the program better. |
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| Nigeria-based design studio will be exhibiting at Venice Design 2019. The company will showcase the design research behind its Lagos-inspired font, Danfo Std as well as the entire glyph set. Learn more about Danfo Std here. |
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| TechCabal is pleased to introduce its first paid report, The State of Health Tech in Nigeria. This essential report looks deeply into the state of Nigeria’s health industry, the challenges facing that industry and the innovative startups working to find solutions to those challenges. The report profiles 75 active and 15 inactive health tech startups across 12 subsectors. It further examines the challenges these startups face, the opportunities in the space and makes actionable recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and regulators to consider. Get the report here. |
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Enjoy the holiday!
We’ll see you next week Tuesday.
– Olanrewaju
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