Investor Appetite Strong for Seed Stage Fintech and Crypto Deals in Africa

In today’s funding update, a crypto exchange, a fintech API platform and an MSME lender have raised seven-figure investment rounds across pre-seed and seed stage deals in Africa.

The deals indicate that very early stage deals remain popular for fintech companies across the African continent, despite a number of mega rounds and unicorn valuations raised this year.

Crypto exchange Busha raised US$4.2 million seed funding

Nigeria-based crypto exchange Busha, founded in 2019, has raised US$4.2 million in a seed funding round. The funding will be used to scale beyond Nigeria across the rest of West Africa and other African regions, the company said. The seed funding round was led by Jump Capital. Participating investors included Cadenza Ventures, Blockwall Capital, CMT Digital, Greenhouse Capital, Raba Capital, and others.

Busha currently has over 200,000 users, and aims to onboard one million Africa-based users going forward.

Fintech API provider OnePipe secures US$3.5 million seed round

Nigerian API developer OnePipe has raised US$3.5 million in seed funding to boost its embedded finance API. The round was co-led by Atlantica Ventures, Tribe Capital and V&R Associates.

It also featured Canaan Partners, Saison Capital, Klarna founder Niklas Adalberth Norrsken, The Fund and Two Culture Cap. Other participating investors included Chris Adelsbach, Techstars, Ingressive Capital, Acquity, P1, Raba, DFS Lab, and some angel investors as well.

MSME lending app Asilimia picks up US$2 million pre-seed round

Kenya-based Asilimia, which provides mobile money transaction capabilities to MSMEs through its Leja app, is looking to branch into lending through a US$2 million pre-seed round. With the funding, the startup will be bolstering its tech and expanding within East Africa, and extending MSME loans based on data from the Leja app.

The funding was split equally between equity and debt. Equity financing was provided by serial entrepreneur Fredrik Jung Abbou, while French Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance) and GreenTec Capital Partners provided the debt facility.

Other seed stage deals in Africa this quarter so far

We’ve observed a number of very early stage funding rounds taking place across Africa, many of which were closed in Q4 this year. Here’s a quick look at the startups that closed seed and pre-seed rounds:

Nigeria

– Nigerian neobank Sparkle secured US$3.1 million seed funding for expansion.
– Nigeria-focused Periculum fetched US$620,000 in a pre-seed deal for its automated credit assessment.
– Nigeria’s SME lending startup Payhippo secured US$3 million in seed funding.
– Nigeria-based fintech Lemonade Finance picked up US$725,000 in a pre-seed round to scale its operations.
– Nigerian business accounting startup Kippa closed US$3.2 million in a pre-seed funding round.
– Nigeria-based money transfer startup Aboki Africa raised an undisclosed pre-seed funding round to scale.

South Africa

– South African API fintech Stitch raised US$2 million seed extension for its Nigeria expansion.
– South Africa-based FinMeUp closed an undisclosed seed funding round for existing and new products.
– South African insurtech startup Root secured US$3 million in seed funding for expansion efforts.