With Africa‘s digital economy on the rise, FollowICT highlights some important developments influencing the startup sector in Africa:
Kenyan Logisitics Startup Leta Expands to Ghana Following $5 Million Raise
Leta is a software startup providing logistics solutions based in Nairobi, Kenya, and has recently entered Ghana, the seventh African market for the company, after raising $5 million in seed funding last March. The start–up already operates in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mauritius. Leta was started in 2021 with Nick Joshi at the helm. The company is focused on automating supply chain logistics in order to simplify their delivery processes.
Its platform enables companies to optimize their delivery routes, manage fleets, and reduce transport costs through AI-driven tooling. The launch in Ghana is part of a strategic effort to position Leta as the leading logistics software provider in Africa, betting that intelligent platforms, not additional trucks, will solve bottlenecks related to delivery capabilities.
South Africa‘s Paymenow Secures $22.5 Million Facility to Expand Worker Financial Access
Stellenbosch fintech Paymenow has received a 400 million rand ($22.5 million USD) working capital facility from Standard Bank to expand its platform for facilitating earned wage access across Africa.
Established in 2019, Paymenow enables employees and workers to access some of their earned income before payday, in the context of not having to rely on predatory lenders, and as a way to incentivize saving and financial wellness. Although Deon Nobrega leads the business, also on the founding team is rugby World Cup champion Bryan Habana and several technical co-founders. The company has a vision of providing fair real-time access to wages for underserved workers.
Stitch Acquires Efficacy Payments to Enhance Card Processing in South Africa
Stitch, a payments infrastructure company based in South Africa, is building on its already good position in card acquiring in the market with the acquisition of Efficacy Payments. The acquisition means Stitch is now a participant in South Africa‘s designated clearing system (DCSP), enabling Stitch to offer direct card acquiring services to merchants.
Stitch was founded in 2021 and helps companies integrate through streamlined APIs with financial systems. Moved to recently announce a $55 million fundraising round, Stitch continues to build its direct payments capabilities. With the acquisitions of ExiPay and Efficacy, Stitch is becoming one of the first South African fintechs able to provide real-time card clearing for both online and in-person transactions.
Cape Town–based Cerebrium Secures $8.5 Million to Scale Serverless AI Infrastructure
Cerebrium, a high-performance serverless artificial intelligence platform founded in Cape Town, raised $8.5 million in seed funding to improve its features and address growing demand from enterprise clients.
Founded by Michael Louis and Jonathan Irwin—now based in New York—the startup supplies the infrastructure to drive multimodal AI applications. Out of the trials of productizing AI, Cerebrium was born out of a need to aggregate exhausting tools that are inefficient by nature and end up costing enterprises unnecessary cloud costs. Essentially, we built Cerebrium so the engineer could focus on building products that delight users and create real impact for the business, Louis said.
Nigeria’s BFREE Raises $3 Million to Buy and Restructure Distressed Loan Portfolios
BFREE, a Lagos–based startup for ethical debt recovery, has raised $3 million from Johannesburg-based impact investment firm Verdant Capital Hybrid Fund. The capital raised will be a loan to purchase distressed loan portfolios and restructure them, from African financial institutions.
BFREE employs technology to enable borrowers to repay debt with dignity appealing to microfinance institutions and commercial lenders looking for humane forms of recovery. Verdant Capital said: “This investment will create liquidity to lenders stuck with non-performing assets, and offer defaulters a route back to creditworthiness.“
Roqqu of Nigeria acquires Kenya‘s Flitaa as it looks to grow in East Africa
Cryptocurrency platform Roqqu has acquired Flitaa, a Kenyan crypto business, as it seeks to tap into East Africa‘s fintech market.
Flitaa was launched in 2019, provides easier options for crypto trading in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania, and has a direction toward greater market penetration in crypto trading. Roqqu also started in 2019 and has focused on organic growth without outside investment and has received local permission for crypto trading, among other services in Kenya. This acquisition represents another step toward Roqqu‘s goal or mission to expand access to crypto across Africa after being licensed to operate in the European Economic Area (EEA) in 2022.
