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Entrepreneurship
- Analysts have termed Central Africa as a sleeping Giant, yet to awaken as the region recorded the least funding for startups in 2022.
- In 2022, Central Africa was by far the region where start-ups raised the least funding through deals worth $100,000 and over with a total of $51 million according to the latest report by The Big Deal.
- While the region represented only 1.1 percent of the funding raised on the continent, Year on Year growth was commendable, as start-ups raised more than double the amount that had been raised in 2021 ($24 million).
Analysts have termed Central Africa a sleeping giant, yet to awaken as the region recorded the least funding for startups in 2022.
Max Cuvellier from The Big Deal says there is a huge potential in the region despite the depressed numbers.
“This is not to say that there isn’t talent or potential in the DRC, …
In the latest fundraising led by B Capital Group, Flutterwave raised US$250 million, with participation from Alta Park Capital LP, Whale Rock Capital and Lux Capital.
Flutterwave said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. “The investment has enabled the company to become the highest valued African startup,” a Flutterwave email read.
Flutterwave has processed transactions worth more than US$16 million in over 50 million transactions across dozens of countries in Africa, facilitating cross-border transactions in multiple currencies for companies, including Uber Technologies Inc., Booking.com and Alibaba’s Alipay. It has evolved beyond payments products to an online marketplace and a lending channel to small and medium businesses.
With operations from the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos to Nairobi, Kenya, the San Francisco-based company will continue to grow in East Africa. According to Flutterwave’s software engineer, the company also plans to expand its Francophone African nations such as Senegal and Cameroon.…
Rural Farmers Hub will receive financial support worth US$15,000. It is a precision management solution for crop health and soil quality assessment created for small farmers, extensive plantations, and industrial out-growers.
Rural Farmers Hub provides intelligent maps to plan precise fixation of defects in soil and crops and develop various AI algorithms for agricultural application in Africa, showing how data can significantly impact the agriculture sector.
The company works with an extension worker network of over 200 members and have since reached over 25,000 smallholder farmers. They target ten vital corporate customers and an estimated 250,000 smallholder farmers within 24 months.…
Why is Elizabeth Holmes the most talked about ex-billionaire? Well, I guess the question answers itself. Five years ago, Elizabeth Holmes made it to the cover of Forbes, she was only 31 years old and worth $4.5 billion.
When you are in your early thirties and make almost $400,000 dollars annually and ranked one of America’s 50 richest people.
you invariably get famous, very famous. Invariably, you become even more famous or shall we say infamous, when you lose all that money.
But who is Elizabeth Holmes? The self-made billionaire, correction, the former millionaire is the CEO of Theranos, a company that in that year, 2015, was valued at $9 billion.
Elizabeth Holmes owned over 50% of the blood-testing organization. Only one year later, the feds crashed the company on fraud charges and with it, down crashed the CEO.
In 2016, Forbes reevaluated Elizabeth Holmes to be at a …
Every year, the L’Oréal Fondation along with UNESCO short lists 20 African women researchers for the academic excellence of their work. The young women then, enter the Sub-Saharan Africa Young Talent Awards For Women in Science.
Sourced from 16 countries, these 15 PhD students and 5 post-doctorates embody, through their backgrounds and research subjects, all the diversity and potential of tomorrow’s African science – L’Oreal.
The shortlisted 20 youth had to fight their way through a maze of nearly 330 applications. The submission were sifted through by a jury that was Chaired by Professor Nelson Torto who is the Executive Director of the African Academy of Sciences.
“They all have in common the excellence of their projects and the desire to contribute to fueling innovation in Africa” he commented.
“They are joining the community of 3,400 women researchers around the world who have been supported by the For Women in …
On the 5th of November 2020, the 8th Angel Fair Africa will be virtual instead of in Dakar, Senegal due to the global pandemic[1]. $23M of deals have happened over the last seven events which brought selected entrepreneurs to pitch to a room of angel investors whose primary intent was to DO DEALS[2]. In April last year, Connected Med who was in our 2016 cohort was bought by the pharmaceutical giant Merck – the first exit by any company that has participated in our event.[3] The events have also resulted in numerous joint ventures, trade, sales, mentorship, relationships and other deals that we not have even recorded.
In September 2013 when we launched the event in South Africa my friend Russell Southwood, editor of Balancing Act Africa wrote the most amazing headline – “Angels Over Johannesburg – South Africa hosts the first …
Forty-three leading global investors from Africa, Europe, the US, and the Middle East have signed up to participate virtually in the 8th Angel Fair Africa on 5th November 2020.
The investors are from Angel Africa List (AAL), Africa Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (AVCA), America Capital Association (ACA), Women-In-Capital (WIC), Viktoria Business Angel Network, Brightmore Capital, amongst others. Anime Partners and MSM Property Fund are supporting the investor participation.
The ten selected ventures to pitch to these investors have gone through our one-month Africa Virtual Accelerator (AVA) @ https://www.africavirtualaccelerator.com/in.php. They are, ShopMeAway led by Racine Carr; Kalpay led by Ibrahima Kane; AgroInnova led by Amos Narh; Adi&Bolga led by Abimbola Oladeji; Kladika led by Muthoni Mwangi; Gift Pesa led by Pamela Muriuki; Ejoobi led by Simangele Mphahlele; Kweza led by Ropafadzo Musvaire, Afrijob Network led by Harriet Kariuki and Curacel led by Henry Mascot. Their participation …
Winners of the 2020 edition of the Private Equity Awards Africa are set to be announced on 19 November 2020. There are 19 African focused private equity firms in the running for the house of the year position.
In the previous year’s awards, the house of the year award went to Development Partners International, a firm that manages over US$1.6 billion in pan-African private equity.
Several other subcategories will rate private equity firms in terms of deal size, the exit of the year, debt and infrastructure, and a portfolio company of the year. The competition also includes a category for the best advisors and fund administrators.
The London Business School Private Equity Institute in conjunction with the private equity awards advisory panel will make recommendations for the deserving winners.
The ultimate winners will be chosen by an autonomous panel of judges which comprises some of the …
