Nigerian digital commerce startup, OurPass has closed a $1 million pre-seed round to scale their one-click checkout platform across the country. The round was led by Tekedia Capital and angel investors from Fortune 500 companies. This round will enable OurPass to hire more talent and further develop its technology. Founded

Kenyan mobile money platform, M-Pesa has announced a milestone of 50 million active users across Africa. Making it the most popular mobile money platform in the continent, and Africa’s largest fintech company. This was revealed by the M-Pesa Africa managing director Sitoyo Lopokoiyit. In a statement to mark the

Egyptian fintech super app, MNT-Halan has closed a $120 million funding round from major global and regional growth investors to enhance its product and expand internationally. The investment – which is the largest single round ever secured by an Egyptian tech startup, was led by Apis Growth Fund II, Development Partners

Pezesha, a Kenyan fintech startup that is currently building a scalable lending infrastructure for SMEs and institutions, has announced the raise of a seven-figure seed extension round to expand its services across Africa. Pezesha is currently operating in three African countries – Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, with intentions to launch its

In a bid to support high-impact business leaders with access to fundraising support, mentorship, partnership, and strong peer network, Endeavor Nigeria has selected 4 startups to participate in the inaugural cohort of the 10-week Endeavor ScaleUp Programme. The selected startups are; * Releaf: which develops proprietary hardware and software solutions to

U.S. and Senegal-based mobile money provider, Wave has announced the raise of a $200 million Series A financing. This landmark investment shot the valuation of the independent mobile money provider to $1.7 billion. The round which is the largest ever Series A round in Africa was led by

Leading e-payment platform, MyFawry has been awarded as the top fintech app in the Middle East by Forbes Middle East. The report by Forbes also highlighted other leading mobile apps that would help customers make payments, transfer, borrow money as well as invest online. MyFawry already possesses these features and

Uganda-based e-logistics startup, Ridelink, has partnered with Omidyar Network, African Leadership Academy’s Young Entrepreneurs Fund (Anzisha), and Ortus Africa Capital, while it raised pre-seed funding of US$150,000 to scale its operations. This latest pre-seed funding brings Ridelink’s total investment to US$250,000, having drawn private

Ear1, an African social media startup that allows people to talk to influencers and professionals for a small amount, has announced the raise of a $520,000 pre-seed round. The round was led by Danny Oyekan of Dan Ventures, with Alkesh Thavrani of Stellar International and Prosper Otemuyiwa (CTO of

Pan-African VC firm, LoftyInc Capital, has announced on Tuesday that it is launching its third fund — LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 — at $10 million for tech startups in Africa. The firm has seen the first close of $5.5 million. Some of the limited partners in the vehicle include FBNQuest Funds,

Seedstars has announced for submission of entries into its global Digital Democracy Challenge, a hackathon that seeks to provide innovative solutions that strengthen and promote digital democracy. The program is looking for innovative and cost-effective solutions that can help citizens, activists, civil society actors, disenfranchised political actors engage in the

Awabah, a Nigerian fintech startup that provides micro pension services for people in formal and informal employment, announced over the weekend that it has been accepted into the Techstars London accelerator program alongside nine other startups. This is coming after the digital pension startup raised $200K from early-stage angel investors,

VitruvianMD, a South African e-health startup, has raised a US$659,000 financing round to scale its technology and launch more pilots. The round was led by the Singapore-based Verge Healthtech Fund and several angel investors. VitruvianMD combines biomedical engineering and cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to provide medical laboratories with

Andela, the global talent network that helps companies build remote engineering teams, has announced Tuesday, a new milestone for its developer learning community. Andela Learning Community (ALC) has now surpassed 100,000 learners. Launched in 2017, Andela’s Learning Community (ALC) works with the belief that brilliance is evenly distributed

Quro Medical, a Johannesburg-based health tech startup that offers accessible and affordable healthcare for South Africans has secured undisclosed financing (PDF) from Life Healthcare (LHC), a leading international healthcare organization, and South Africa’s largest private hospital chain. This deal is coming after Quro Medical raised a $1.1 million

Plentywaka, an African mobility startup with a presence in Lagos and Toronto has secured a $1.2 million seed round to scale its operations, after graduating from the Techstars accelerator program last month. The round was led by a Canada-based VC firm, The Xchange. SOSV and Shock Ventures also participated

Nigeria-based fintech company, Opay has raised $400 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the venture capital arm of Japanese conglomerate, SoftBank. This investment signals the first time SoftBank Vision Fund is investing in an Africa-based startup. Existing investors like Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source

Odiggo, an Egypt-based auto-tech startup, has announced the close of a $2.2 million seed round from global Venture Capital firms; 500 Startups, Y Combinator and PlugAndPlay. Regional VCs like Seedra Ventures, LoftyInc Capital, and Essa Al-Saleh (CEO of Volta-Tucks) also took part in the round. Launched in December 2019

Standard Bank Group, Africa’s largest lender by assets is set to outline its ‘2025 Ambition’ – which includes plans to ‘transform ‘client experience’ and provide guidance for future financial targets. The bank is also poised on transforming into a platform for services beyond banking, it said on Friday. After years

The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) has announced the four Southern African startups that will go on to the HiiL Justice Accelerator. HiiL is a social enterprise devoted to user-friendly justice, which aims to increase access to justice that is easy to access, easy to understand, and effective

Nigerian competitive e-sports startup Gamr has secured seed investment to scale its operations further and deliver new opportunities to Africa’s estimated 750 million gamers. Gamr is an online subscription platform that allows gamers to interact with each other and enables tournament organisers to host events. It also organises its

A federal high court in Abuja, Nigeria, has on Tuesday granted the request of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to freeze the account of six fintech companies. The Fintech startups affected by the ex parte motion include Rise Vest Technologies, Bamboo Systems Technology Limited, Bamboo System Technologies Limited OPNS,

Pngme, a San Francisco and Africa based fintech infrastructure and machine learning-as-a-service platform has closed a $15 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Lateral Capital, Unshackled Ventures, Raptor Group, EchoVC, Future Africa, Two Small Fish Ventures, and a group of individual

Wayja, a South Africa based peer-to-peer (P2P) betting platform that allows users to connect with friends and place informal bets on anything from anywhere, has gone live. With the launch, the startup is already looking to raise seed funding and fast-track international growth. Founded in early 2020 by Reece Jacobsen

Showlove,  a Nigeria-based social platform for gifting has announced the close of a $300,000 pre-seed round from Fedha Capital, and other angel investors. Launched in December 2020 by Chikodi Ukaiwe, Joshua Biyere, and Seye Bandele, the company is simplifying the process of requesting, giving, and receiving gifts and cash