Africans building Africa
Hi Fintech friends 👋,
It has been a busy week with more Fintech announcements, here are the highlights of what happened in African Fintech this week;
Six African Fintechs announced funding deals.
South African fintech startupacquired ExiPay to expand into in-person payments.
Visa strategically invested $10 Million in Africa’s Unicorn.
Mastercard partnered with a Kenyan Bank to launch Kenya’s first multi-currency prepaid card.
Nigeria’s fintech paid staff with suspected fraudulent funds while the other is facing allegations of failing to remit tax and pension payments on behalf of clients.
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💸Fundraise and Exits
Naked secured $38 Million to advance AI-driven Insurance in South Africa.
Africa's insurance market is $68 billion in Gross Written Premiums. Over 70% of this business is based in South Africa, with an insurance penetration of 17%.
Egyptian fintech MoneyHash raised $5.2 million Pre-Series A from Flourish Ventures.
20 Best Fintech Companies in Egypt
Hamilton raised $1.7 Million from Disruptech Ventures to bridge traditional finance and Bitcoin’s decentralised infrastructure.
Nigerian fintech startup Accrue raised $1.58 Million seed round.
South African fintech Stitch acquired ExiPay to expand into in-person payments.
Flow raised funding from InuaCapital to credit and empower underserved communities.
💰 Venture Funds
The 8 serial investors that powered Africa’s Startup ecosystem in 2024.
8 investors were involved in at least 10 $100k+ deals in 2024
🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches
Cost of remittances
👔 Leadership Lineup
CEO of Bento, Nigeria’s HR startup responded to allegations that his startup was stealing employee tax (payee) from all the startups using them.
A tweet that raised allegations
📰 News of the Week
Visa strategically invested $10 Million in Nigerian unicorn Moniepoint.
Adoption of Digital payments in Nigeria
Moniepoint, whose Series C now exceeds $120 million, was reportedly in talks with other investors and may attract more funding in the coming months, all while maintaining its billion-dollar valuation.
In 2023, Moniepoint grew transaction value by over 205%, processing 5.2 billion transactions worth over $150 billion. Moniepoint claims it now processes over 800 million transactions, with monthly total value exceeding $17 billion.
👀 Eye Openers
“Founders’ behaviors the ecosystem shouldn’t ignore”
Today I found out that the payroll service we’ve been using for a long time has not been remitting full payee to LIRS, instead, they’ll deduct milions for employee tax but pay 100 naira to LIRS then duplicate and forge the receipts..— Name cannot be blank (@hackSultan) January 23, 2025
📑 Read of the week
The Seed Valley of Death of Venture-Funded African Companies(Joe Kinvi)
📖 Other News, Reads, and Media
SeamlessHR informally explored PaidHR acquisition in 2024 as competition in HR Tech intensifies.
Piggyvest paid out $542 Million in 2024 as it crossed $1.2 Billion in total payouts.
Piggyvest in 2024
Flutterwave UK recorded £5.4 million turnover in 2023.
Flutterwave UK's profit grew to £485.5k in 2023
🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS
From Groceries to Crypto: interview with Devon Moodley, Head of Financial Services and Value-Added Services at Pick n Pay on how they are Redefining the Future of Retail Payments.
🦉 Tweet of the Week
New Chinese Investor friend: I want to visit Africa soon.
Me: Where are you going to visit first?
Friend: Nairobi.
Someone needs to explain this Kenyan PR to me. LOL!
Americans and Europeans would rather go there first before West Africa. What is Ghana doing wrong?— Osaretin Victor Asemota (@asemota) January 25, 2025
🎯 Fintech Opportunities
Applications open for 4th Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator. Apply
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