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,…

Specialist development agency Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa is set to be launching its insurtech accelerator program in Ghana and Nigeria in 2022. The agency will be launching its BimaLab Insurtech Accelerator Program in the two West African countries next year, according to TechCrunch. The launch comes after FSD Africa kickstarted it’s insurtech accelerator in Kenya just this year. The KES 5.3 million BimaLab accelerator was launched in July through a partnership with Kenya’s Insurance Regulatory Authority and Tellistic Technology Services. The second cohort of the 10-week Kenya program graduated last week. FSD Africa was established in 2012 and is…

African fintech hubs have grown rapidly in the past few years, leading to pockets of fintech development across the continent. According to Findexable’s Global Fintech Rankings Report, 14 of the top Middle East and African fintech hubs came from the African continent. These included the usual suspects, but more interestingly, seven of these fintech hubs were new additions. Rwanda, Seychelles, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Cameroon and Ethiopia all made it to the Findexable index for the first time. On Fintech News Africa, we’ve previously talked about the three biggest African fintech hubs. They were South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. In addition…

African fintech companies have had a year like no other when it comes to funding. Between Q1 and Q3 this year, African fintech companies raised US$1.44 billion in funding dollars. The funding total surpassed the entire amount raised by these companies across the past decade, where they raised a total of US$1.06 billion. Now, African fintech companies are now expected to raise close to US$3 billion by the end of the year. In fact, the funding total year to date November 2021 nearly reached US$2 billion. Of this, US$1.3 billion was raised by eight companies alone. Aside from local investors,…

In a tech solutions crossover last week, Enel X and Mastercard have launched a ‘FinSec Innovation Lab’ — a lab that focuses on cybersecurity capabilities for Israeli fintech companies — in Israel. The FinSec Innovation Lab will create state-of-the-art environments to simulate real world situations based on actual data, so Israeli fintech and cybersecurity-related startups can test new products along with the support of both Israeli and international mentors, a statement said. It is also aimed at integrating startup solutions in the Enel X Financial Services business portfolio, CEO Francesco Venturini said. Enel X is the smart energy services arm…

Singapore-headquartered payments network Thunes and US-based cross border payments company UniTeller have announced a partnership to expand UniTeller’s services globally, according to a recent statement. Thunes and UniTeller will be working on extending UniTeller’s solutions to over 20 international markets in Africa and the Asia Pacific region, the statement said. “Our partnership with Thunes marks an important milestone as we strive towards improving the access of communities across emerging markets by expanding our technology solutions in Africa and Asia Pacific,” Alberto Guerra, CEO of UniTeller, said about the partnership. UniTeller is a global remittance and payment processing service provider, providing…

Ozow, a South Africa-based payments company, has raised US$48 million in a Series B round of funding, according to a company announcement. The round was led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, along with participation from Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest Fund. Funding will be used to develop the company’s product suite and support expansion in new markets in Africa. This includes a focus on developing new products, as well as strategic investments, including mergers and acquisitions. Further, Ozow is also looking to boost hiring at its Europe office, and commit funds to its expansion in Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) have completed a first-of-its-kind digital cross-border trade finance document transfer (Fintech Futures). This makes the initiative the world’s first cross-border digital trade financing pilot, a statement said. A ‘TradeTrust’ framework developed by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in Singapore facilitated the pilot transfer between MAS and Abu Dhabi Global Market’s (ADGM) regulatory body FSRA. DBS Bank, Emirates NBD and Standard Chartered also worked on the project as commercial partners. Legally, the pilot was backed by a UN affiliate-developed Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR). Both…

Financial inclusion is on the developmental agenda in Egypt, and fintech startups in Egypt are one of the key driving forces to achieve this kind of adoption. Digital payments is expected to be the most benefited vertical within the fintech segment, and is forecast to reach US$19.4 billion by 2025. Neobanking and digital investments are further behind, but still in the billion-dollar territory. There are a handful of encouraging from the regulatory perspective that fintech startups in Egypt can also look forward to. For instance, a new law was introduced in March this year to allow the country’s central bank…

Global crypto adoption is being propelled by emerging markets, and crypto in Africa is at the forefront of this. As of August this year, peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin trading volumes in sub-Saharan Africa on crypto trading platforms LocalBitcoins and Paxful crossed US$18 million, the highest in the world (surpassing trading volumes in North America for the first time). At Luno, another crypto trading platform, African users represent 45% of the one million customers it newly added since June this year. Meanwhile, pan-African crypto exchange Yellow Card raised US$15 million in a Series A round this year to boost expansion. In Congo,…

In another big round this week, pan-African digital payments gateway MFS Africa has secured US$100 million in a Series C equity and debt round, the company announced in a statement. The financing is split US$70 million for equity and US$30 million from debt, according to a TechCrunch report. It brings the total equity funding raised so far by the company to US$95 million, in addition to the US$30 million debt funding. The round was co-led by new investor AfricInvest FIVE, alongside existing backers Goodwell Investments and LUN Partners. Participating investors included CommerzVentures, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, Endeavor Harvest and…

Over 500 fintech startups across multiple categories and counting. Nearly US$900 million raised in capital in the last 7 years, twice the amount garnered by any other African tech sector. And thousands of adopters with millions still yet to be served. The meteoric rise of fintech in Africa is transforming lives and economies, unleashing innovation, bolstering trade and propelling an upsurge of financial inclusion across the continent. Africa Fintech Summit 2021 brings together the innovators, financial executives, entrepreneurs, investors, global corporations, and policymakers driving the ongoing growth of fintech in Africa and shaping the future of digital commerce and technology…

Fintech companies in Nigeria are at the forefront of Africa’s fintech revolution, and many of them have turned out to become formidable players to watch out for. Last year, fintech companies in Nigeria picked up a majority of the funding that came into the country, with 44% of the total startup funding deals. Adoption of digital financial services is also growing steadily. In 2019 for instance, US$256 billion was transferred electronically, up from US$48 billion in 2014. As of 2020, it is estimated that there were over 200 fintech companies in Nigeria. Further, by 2022, the country’s fintech sector is…

South Africa-headquartered AI-based banking-as-a-service platform Jumo announced in a statement that it has raised US$120 million from new and existing backers. The round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, an investment advisory firm owned by the Johnson family, who run the Fidelity empire. This marks the firm’s first venture investment in an emerging markets-focused fintech company, the statement said. Visa and Kingsway also participated in the round. The round raises Jumo’s total funding to about US$200 million so far. Its previous backers include Leapfrog, Goldman Sachs, Finnfund, Proparco, Vostok Emerging Finance and Brook Asset Management. Funding will be…

MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa had a substantial win in Nigeria last week, after the two mobile money players won conditional approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria to offer mobile banking services. MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa still have to wait for final approval, which Airtel expects will come through within six months of them fulfilling certain regulatory conditions. The approval will let MTN MoMo and Airtel’s Smartcash to provide a range of banking services. This includes the ability to accept deposits and withdrawals, issue debit and prepaid cards, and provide digital wallet and remittance services in Nigeria. The…

Nigeria-based SME lending startup Payhippo has secured US$3 million in a seed funding round, according to a statement by the company. The round was led by a number of African founders leading some of the continent’s biggest fintech companies. They included Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, co-founders Chipper Cash (which recently raised US$150 million Series C), Flutterwave founder Olugbenga Agboola, Bolaji Balogun, CEO of Chapel Hill Denham, and founder of Metis Capital Partners Hakeem Belo-Osagie. Other investors in the round included angels from Paystack, Brex, and Tala, limited partners from Payhippo’s pre-seed round, and institutional investors TEN13, VentureSouq, and Prodigio…

The sixth Africa Fintech Summit (AFTS) will take place at the St. Regis hotel in Cairo, Egypt on November 16, 2021. The Summit takes place as the world heals and evolves from the COVID-19 pandemic, and as Africa’s fintech industry begins to hit its inflection point of growth and accelerate its worldwide relevance. This event will bring together over 70+ different speakers and is expected to garner the largest AFTS audience ever. This past year saw a wave of progress for countless African fintechs, from America’s Stripe acquiring Paystack, to the inclusion of Chipper Cash, Flutterwave, and Fawry into the…

Pan-African cross-border payments company Chipper Cash has secured US$150 million in an extension to its Series C, TechCrunch reported. The round was led by Bahamian-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX. This is FTX’s first investment play in Africa. Participating investors included existing backers SVB Capital, Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions, One Way Ventures and Tribe Capital. New investors also took part in the round but were unnamed, the report said. The Series C extension comes on the heels of the company’s US$100 million Series C fundraise in May this year, led by SVB Capital. Chipper Cash becomes Africa’s sixth fintech unicorn…

Saudi Arabia’s fintech ecosystem is thriving to say the least. In last week’s fintech news, a new report pointed out that Saudi fintech companies raised a three-figure total of US$157.2 million between January and August this year. Compare this to the annual total of US$7.8 million last year, or US$18 million raised in 2019. Here’s some more data to give context: – One in every four funding deals in Saudi Arabia during H1 2021 went to a fintech company. – At a CAGR of 40%, fintech venture investment in Saudi Arabia from 2017 to 2021 beat the MENA average by…

Striving to become a hotbed for fintech innovation, Mauritius’ Budget 2021-2022 has laid out a series a new measures to stimulate further growth in the sector. These measures include the setting up of an Open Lab by the Bank of Mauritius (BoM) for banking and payment solutions, as well as the establishment of Fintech Innovation Lab by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) to encourage an entrepreneurship culture. BoM will also be rolling out, on a pilot basis, the Digital Rupee, a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). BoM governor Harvesh Seegolam indicated in August that the central bank had benefited…