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The public voting process has opened for the first Google Impact Challenge Africa, which looks to support African ventures and initiatives solving societal problems.

Startups and non-profits from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are taking part in the competition, which will reward four winners from each country with funding and strategic support.

There are 36 finalists in all, with the Kenyan selection including agri-tech startup Ujuzi Kilimo Solutions and ed-tech startup M-Shule. In Nigeria, e-health startup HelpMum is nominated, while agri-tech startup GreenFingers Mobile and e-health company hearX Group are among the South African finalists.

Voting closes on November 25.

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Dimension Data and Silicon Cape have partnered to launch the NTT Data Open Innovation Challenge for South African startups, seeking solutions that help meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Dimension Data will be hosting the South African applications for the NTT Data Open Innovation Contest on February 8 next year in Cape Town, with the regional winners being invited to the Grand Finale in Tokyo in March.

NTT Data Corporation (NTT Data), a world-class, global IT services provider headquartered in Tokyo, is hosting an open innovation contest in search of new partners and businesses. Regional contests will be held in 20 cities across 18 countries.

Any startup is welcome to submit a proposal for a collaborative business with NTT Data in fields such as Healthcare & Life Sciences, Finance, Insurance and Payments, Automotive and IoT, RPA and Back Office, Storefront and Digital Marketing, Data Distribution and Disruptive Social Innovation.

This comes after Dimension Data, a long-term Silicon Cape partner, joined as a blue member of the organisation’s Africa-first membership, an evolved model that was launched in July 2018, to support structured and proactive engagement with the startup ecosystem in the wider Cape region.  

“Our partnership with Silicon Cape, is motivated by our commitment to corporate citizenship and recognition that for organisations, like ourselves to succeed, our South African economy and all  stakeholders in the economic ecosystem need to thrive,” said Grant Bodley, chief executive officer (CEO) of Dimension Data Middle East and Africa.

Dimension Data and Silicon Cape are planning a number of strategic collaborations which are set to be announced in 2019.

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Kenyan agri-tech startup Twiga Foods, which connects smallholder farmers in rural areas to informal retail vendors in cities, has raised US$10 million in funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and TLcom Capital.

Twiga Foods, which secured a US$10.3 million Series A funding round last year – is a business to business food distribution company that builds fair and reliable markets for agricultural producers and retailers through transparency, efficiency and technology.

Its platform uses mobile technology to match supply and demand, aggregating market participants and finding buyers for farmers’ produce.

The latest round of investment was co-led by IFC and TLcom, a pan-African venture capital firm, with participation from previous investors Wamda Capital, DOB Equity, 1776 and Adolph H Lundin. As part of the deal, Wale Ayeni, who leads IFC’s venture capital activities in Africa, and Maurizio Caio, managing partner at TLcom, will join the board.

“The IFC and TLcom investment will enable us to reach more farmers, improve efficiency in service delivery and increase access to high quality produce and foodstuffs for vendors. We will continue in our mission to provide affordable, quality, and safe food to Kenya’s urban consumers, and reliable markets for farmers across the country,” said Grant Brooke, chief executive officer (CEO) of Twiga Foods.  

Twiga will use the new investment to expand operations and offer new services. Since it launched in 2014, it has grown to work with over 13,000 farmers and 6,000 vendors in Kenya. The company initially started off matching vendors to banana farmers, but now works with other produce such as tomatoes, cabbage, mango, potato and onion. Farmers who sign up with Twiga receive payment within 24 hours.

“Access to markets is a key concern for smallholder farmers across Africa, many of whom live in remote areas. IFC’s investment in Twiga supports our thesis that digital solutions in emerging markets address real time challenges and create more transparency. Twiga is helping to create a more efficient supply chain that connects farmers directly to markets, which also increases their incomes,” said Nikunj Jinsi, IFC’s global head of venture capital.

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South African financial services chatbot provider FinChatBot has secured funding from local venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners and the Mauritius-based Compass Capital to continue its rapid growth and expand its client pipeline.

Founded in 2016, FinChatBot develops chatbots to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers through artificial intelligence (AI)-powered conversations.

The startup promises to dramatically lower the drop off rate traditionally experienced by customers who engage with a call centre.

It is now planning further expansion with the undisclosed amount of funding from Kalon and Compass Capital, with co-founder Antoine Paillusseau saying the investment was a “huge vote of confidence” in the startup’s vision.

“I am extremely excited to learn from and grow with our partners,” he said.

Kalon chief executive officer (CEO) Clive Butkow expressed excitement upon the conclusion of the deal.

“As a leading technology venture capital company, we are constantly searching for the best of the best in new and emerging disrupting industries,” he said. “Chatbots are undeniably one of the fastest growing customer service industries, disrupting a traditionally frustrating customer experience. We identified FinChatBot as one of the leaders of this new industry, not only in the financial services industry but the chatbot eco-system as a whole.”

Fabrice Boullé, partner at Compass Capital, said his company’s investment was as much in the leadership of FinChatBot as it was in the technology.  

“FinChatBot’s business model, based on an unmatched expertise in creating chatbots for the financial services industry, struck us as ahead of the regional competition. But in the end, our investment decision was mainly motivated by our trust in Antoine’s capacity to lead FinChatBot to the top, as well as our appreciation for his straightforward personality and transparency,” he said.

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Fintech startup Franc has been named the winner of the South African leg of the Seedstars competition, booking a place at the global final in Switzerland in April and the chance to pitch for up to US$1 million in equity investment.

Global early-stage startups competition Seedstars has already picked African winners in Egypt, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Ghana, Rwanda, Libya, Uganda, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Angola, Nigeria, Cameroon and Botswana, and held its South African final in Cape Town yesterday (November 14).

The winning startup was Franc, a self-insurance platform that offers customers the opportunity to grow their wealth and manage their personal risk. Launched earlier this year, the Franc app aims to make investing simple and affordable, giving stokvel members access to the money market and an exchange-traded fund via their mobile phones.

Franc will now head to Switzerland for the Seedstars Summit in April, where it will take part in a week-long bootcamp along with the other winners from across the world. At the event, it stands the chance of being selected to pitch for up to US$1 million in equity investment and other prizes.

Seven startups pitched at the South African final of the competition, after sub-events in Cape Town and Johannesburg each saw three startups selected.

Property startup HouseME, payments solution Slide Financial and B2B platform Kuba were the Cape Town startups pitching, with Franc representing Johannesburg alongside language learning platform Uthini and payments startup Maxicash. Stellenbosch-based on-demand storage startup Sxuirrel was the wildcard entry.

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Senegal-based mobile classifieds platform CoinAfrique has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from music and entertainment company TRACE to speed its growth across French-speaking Africa.

Launched in 2015, CoinAfrique has 400,000 active monthly users in 15 French-speaking African countries, and more than one million downloads of its mobile application.

Based in Dakar, Senegal, with offices in five other African countries, the startup employs more than 50 people, and aims to reach 10 million active users by 2022. It was one of the 20 startups from across the continent selected to take part in the World Bank’s XL Africa accelerator last year.

CoinAfrique has raised a EUR2.5 million (US$3.085 million) funding round from several investors in April, and it has now announced further funding from TRACE, which will accelerate its development.

“TRACE’s arrival as a shareholder of CoinAfrique confirms the strength of our growth model and highlights the opportunity to create a pan-African francophone leader in the classifieds arena,” said CoinAfrique co-founders Matthias Papet and Eric Genêtre.

The investment in CoinAfrique is the latest made by TRACE in digital initiatives, including the purchase in 2016 of Kenyan VoD platform Buni.tv, which was merged with TRACE Play, and the 2017 acquisition of online music distributor JTV Digital.

“CoinAfrique has already shown its potential and we are delighted to contribute to its development. TRACE’s stake is in line with our investment strategy in mobile and digital services, and with our desire to support entrepreneurial initiatives which have a positive impact on the African continent,” said Olivier Laouchez, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of TRACE.

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Kenyan startup Netwookie, which has developed an app helping users find professionals and service providers on the informal market, has secured funding from the Germany-based GreenTec Capital.

Founded in 2015, Netwookie has developed an innovative approach to mapping the social networks and relationships of virtually any ecosystem.

The startup digitises word-of-mouth referrals and maps social relationships using a custom-developed trust prediction algorithm based on an individual’s personal contacts. Netwookie currently offers its services as an app, available from the Google Play store, which helps users in Kenya find trusted boda-boda (motorbike taxi) drivers.

It recently finished a successful pilot in Nairobi, and is actively working to further develop the platform to offer HR and recruitment services to African business and corporates. Netwookie has now secured funding from GreenTec Capital, which has also recently invested in Nigerian logistics startup Parcel-it, Kenyan insurtech platform Bismart and Namibian CPU producer PEBL, to facilitate this.

“This is an ideal solution for companies seeking to hire the best candidates from a vast pool of potential job seekers with a range of educational and work experience, leveraging the company’s technology to identify local talent, as well as, help professionals further develop their skills through strategic matches with organisations,” GreenTec said.

You can read Disrupt Africa’s interview with GreenTec CEO Erick Yong, as part of our “Meet the Investor” series, here.

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More than 70 startups from across the continent will compete in 11 open innovation challenges at the AfricArena conference in Cape Town over the next two days.

AfricArena, which is taking place for the second year, is a conference that showcases Africa’s best startups and innovators in front of an audience of local and international investors looking for world-class talent.

The themes for this year’s edition are Smart City, Smart Agri, Smart Commerce, Smart Skills, Smart Media and Smart Travel, with over 70 startups from 30 countries attending and competing in 11 open innovation challenges sponsored by the likes of Vinci Energies, AirFrance, Engie, Sanofi, Leroy Merlin, the City of Cape Town and RCS.

AfricArena will run a hackathon on a mobility challenge for the City of Cape Town, while over 100 investors from the Unite States (US), Europe and Africa will attend or follow on the live streaming of the pitch sessions.

“Hosting prestigious events such as AfricArena is important in endorsing the Cape as the tech capital of Africa. The event is expecting over 100 investors, with Naspers Ventures being amongst those confirmed,” said Wesgro chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Harris.

“Our investment promotion team has helped land over ZAR1 billion (US$70million) in investment in the Cape tech sector over the last five years – as the gateway to the rest of Africa, we hope we can be a conduit to facilitating more investment into the Africa tech startup scene.”

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AHL Venture Partners, the impact investment arm of Sweden’s Lundin Foundation, has invested in some of the foremost African tech startups, including M-KOPA Solar, Zoona, Tulaa, and Twiga Foods.

Heading up the fund’s Nairobi office is Ben Peterson, a senior partner at AHL who previously founded the NGO Journalists for Human Rights as well as digital news business Newsana, which he sold to a Canadian digital content shop.

Now, he handles East and Southern African impact investments at AHL, which is affiliated with the Lundin Foundation. Created in 2007 by the Lundin family, a wealthy Swedish family that wanted to give back, the fund rebranded as AHL Venture Partners last year to better reflect its status as an investor rather than a foundation and to position it to launch additional investment funds.

Its impact has already been impressive. To date it has deployed more than US$60 million in 35 investments across Africa, both direct and fund deals, mostly in agriculture, financial inclusion and energy access.

“We enjoy quite a bit of flexibility in terms of stage and instruments, but most of deals are in early-stage – Series A or thereabouts – businesses that have achieved product-market fit but need additional capital to provide both strong returns to investors and to create impact at scale,” said Peterson.

AHL currently manages two funds – an evergreen fund supported by the Lundin Family, and a close-end fund with outside LPs. Peterson said the company owes a tremendous debt to the Lundin Family, who he says had the vision to support impact investing before it was a ‘thing’.

“They put real money and their family name on the line. We’re also very fortunate that they have given us the support needed to expand from a one-investor fund to a multi-LP fund manager – our new fund is anchored by the Lundins and rounded out by a number of high net worth individuals, family offices and foundations,” he said.

Though AHL is not especially sector-specific, Peterson said he is most excited by businesses formalising informal markets.

“By professionalising industries that already operate informally, businesses can unlock huge efficiencies, leading to higher quality products delivered to the end customer less expensively. Some informal employment is displaced, but the resulting jobs are better paid with benefits attached,” he said.

“I’m a believer that, in the long run, efforts to formalise Africa’s economy are needed to get wages up. Twiga Foods, a company in our portfolio, is a great example of this model.”

AHL invests across Africa, but Peterson said the continent is a “bit of a mixed bag”.

“We always invest in tech-enabled businesses, but haven’t yet invested in a pure-tech play. I’d love to see an African-founded pure-tech business take on the world, and invest in it of course, but it’s still early in the evolution of the tech scene here. If anyone has some idea who the first African Google will be – please share!” he said.

“That being said, I’m excited by all the tech we see that is enabling growth and efficiency in more traditional business models here. I have no doubt the tech scene here will continue to grow, thrive and eventually compete globally.”

Though he doesn’t think African startups lack anything that international startups have, and the business climate and regulatory environment on the continent is improving, he said African founders sometimes lack the brash take-over-the-world ambition found most frequently from Silicon Valley types.

“But this can be a double-edged sword. Look, if I wasn’t bullish I wouldn’t be investing in African startups – I believe this sector is going to really take off based on the talent, ideas and market opportunities that we currently see. It’s an exciting time to be investing here,” said Peterson.

It is not surprise, then, to see the number of active investors in Africa multiplying.

“On a global scale, Africa is still considered a fairly fringe market. However, because of a combination of repressed returns in Western markets and the increasing success shown by African investors, we’re starting to see traditional investors dip their toes in,” Peterson said.

“I think if we can give risk-averse international investors a good first experience here we’ll start to see the current trickle turn into a flood.”

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Entrepreneurs can lead the coming “decade of creativity” in Africa, if the continent learns to own its unique characteristics, and investors step up to support the ecosystem, according to Eric Osiakwan, managing partner at Chanzo Capital.

Speaking at the startup-dedicated AHUB event, held at pan-African tech conference AfricaCom in Cape Town, Osiakwan said Africa needs to “own” its very unique set of characteristics:  it’s huge and growing population – a substantial proportion of which is made up of tech-savvy young people -, the prevalence of mobile, and the absolute dominance of mobile internet.

“We see the next generation of entrepreneurs in Africa saying ‘I can build the next Facebook’ […] You see a whole generation believing they can build the next big tech.”

This set of characteristics sets Africa up to play a driving force in innovation over the coming decade, driven by mobile technology.

“Mobile has become the new platform for creativity.  So the next 10 year is the decade of creativity,” Osiakwan says.

However, more needs to be done to stimulate further growth of the motivation already emerging among the youthful population, he said.  

Many of the infrastructure and major service developments in Africa to date have been achieved by private sector players.  It is these successful entrepreneurs and businesses that need to step forward and support the next generation of entrepreneurs, Osiakwan says.

“Successful entrepreneurs need to start backing the next generation of entrepreneurs.  We need to start passing the baton forward […] We need to start investing back into the ecosystem.”

This backing isn’t restricted to capital, however.  Osiakwan says the value of sharing experience and knowledge of building businesses can’t be underestimated.

“Actually, I believe experience is more important than capital.  But the combination of both is ideal,” he says.  “We need more successful investors, more angel groups, and more VCs backing this generation of entrepreneurs.”

The current lack of backing from successful entrepreneurs and investors is causing a vicious cycle, holding back emerging startups, Osiakwan says.  New entrepreneurs can’t raise early stage funding – due to the lack of its availability -, and as a result can’t grow their ideas into viable companies capable of accessing larger funders.

In addition, governments need to recognise the crucial economic role entrepreneurs play, and create enabling environments for them to thrive through supportive and facilitatory policies.

Osiakwan criticised the administrative requirements for starting a company, the expensive tax regimes, and oppressive lending rates which characterise many African countries.

“We’ve created an environment where it’s very, very difficult for entrepreneurs to thrive,” he said.

“The people that really create jobs are the SMEs.  So government, if you want to create jobs you need to create an enabling environment for SMEs to succeed […] We need to create an environment where it’s easy to do business.”

Finally, African consumers also have a role to play in boosting the continent’s entrepreneurship trajectory, by opting for locally produced quality products.

“We need to see a market for consumption of local products […] We need to start having an appetite for local products.”

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