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Nigerian logistics startup Kobo360 has launched operations in Togo as it begins its continent-wide expansion drive after securing over US$7 million in funding last year.

Launched in July 2016, Kobo360 enables individuals and businesses to request or schedule pickup of packages, and track the driver until its final destination.

The startup raised two funding rounds totalling US$7.2 million last year from investors including the IFC, YCombinator, WTI, Cardinal Stone Partners, Chandaria Capital and TLcom in order to scale, and it is now pushing ahead with those plans with a launch in Togo.

“This is part of our expansion across Africa which has been in effect since 2018,” said Kobo360 co-founder Obi Ozor. “Our mission is to build the global logistics operating system that will power trade and commerce across Africa and emerging markets. Togo is a key part of that drive.”

The Kobo360 founding team has just been in Togo to meet with government officials and partners, as well as interview hundreds of applicants to fill several open positions in the company’s Lome branch. The company will also be making forays into the Ghanaian and Kenyan markets in the coming weeks.

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Ten Nigerian startups have been selected to pitch at the regional final of the Startup World Cup, with the winner heading to San Francisco to compete for US$1 million in investment at the grand final.

The Startup World Cup competition offers innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities for startup ecosystem around the world. Startups worldwide first compete at regional events, with winners heading to the grand final.

Passion Incubator is the exclusive regional partner for the 2019 Startup World Cup in Nigeria, and invited early-stage startups to apply for the competition. It has now selected 10 companies to pitch at the event, which takes place on February 9 at Civic Hive in Lagos.

Those startups include engineering platform Natterbase, P2P learning platform Edupoint, human capital advisory company WellNewMe, AI-powered on-demand services marketplace Sabi.ai, and property startup Spleet.

Also pitching are retail loyalty platform Loystar, lending solution Social Lender, digital publishing platform Publiseer, alternative financial services company Afara Partners, and agri-tech startup FarmFunded.

The startups will pitch in front of a judging panel comprised of Olusola Amusan, founder of Coven Works; Emmanuel Adegboye, Entrepreneurship Centre manager at Andela; Brian Odhiambo, associate director at Novastar Ventures; and Dayo Koleowo, principal investment officer at Microtraction.
A fireside chat themed “How to be highly competitive and secure investment” will also take place at the event, moderated by Damilola Thompson, senior corporate counsel at EchoVC, with the judges doubling as speakers alongside Evgeny Pobegailo, investment associate at Fenox VC. Interested parties can register to attend here.

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Kenyan startup Veva is aiming to help African filmmakers earn more revenues via its video-on-demand (VoD) platform that offers a better share of profits and focuses on local content.

It might sound like Veva, which was formed in late 2017 and launched its platform formally in November of last year, is going up against the likes of YouTube and Netflix, and that’s because it is.

The startup believes African filmmakers are essentially locked out of platforms like Netflix, and don’t earn enough revenues from YouTube, while such platforms don’t offer enough African content anyway. Veva looks to solve all these problems, and help filmmakers drive deeper viewer engagement with its analytics tool.

“African filmmakers have limited ways of making money from their content. TV stations have a limited time of 24 hours, so most filmmakers miss out on this opportunity. If the content does not make it onto the few TV stations, they have no option but to either give it for free on platforms like YouTube, which are hard to monetise, or just keep it on their hard disks,” founder Gathukia Mwangi, co founder and chief executive officer (CEO) told Disrupt Africa.

“Now with penetration of smartphones, and high speed, almost affordable internet, there is a great opportunity for filmmakers to deliver and monetise their content. We aim to provide a platform where no filmmaker is locked out and all filmmakers are able to create revenue.”

Self-funded until now, Veva is in talks with investors about securing additional finance to build on positive initial uptake. The site has over 10,000 page views so far, and 10 artists have signed up.

“We are at this point concentrating on signing filmmakers so that we can pursue the subscribers. We are happy because the filmmakers get the concept,” Mwangi said.

The benefit for filmmakers that do take the leap of showcasing their content on Veva is the revenue share package, which is better than international competitors.

“We are committed to giving back more than 60 per cent of our revenue back to the filmmakers so that they are able to better tell African stories and grow the film industry,” said Mwangi. Veva’s revenues come from its subscribers.

The startup is currently only operating in Kenya, but hopes to expand to other East African countries in the coming months.

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Nigerian diagnostics startup Stack Dx has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage fund Microtraction to help it expand its market share.

With around 80,000 Nigerian women dying annually from breast cancer, and nearly five million from misdiagnosis of hepatitis diseases, Stack Dx was launched to provide molecular diagnostic services to patients, doctors, and hospitals in Africa.

Founded by Abasi Ene-Obong, Damilola Oni, Francis Osifo and Gatumi Aliyu, Stack Dx has developed a seamless online platform that connects patients and health professionals to genetic tests. Many of these tests have not been offered before in Nigeria, such as its predictive cancer tests, pharmacogenetic tests, and liquid biopsies.

The startup also allows health professionals in Nigeria and many African countries, for the first time, to provide targeted treatments to patients and prevent misdiagnosis of diseases at scale.

Stack Dx has now raised funding from Nigerian early-stage investment fund Microtraction, which invests up to US$65,000 in startups at the very earliest stage of their development. The company has backed a host of Nigerian startups in the last year, including Accounteer, Riby, Thank U Cash, CowryWise, Bitkoin Africa, Wallet.ng and Allpro. As ever, the exact amount invested remains undisclosed.

Dayo Koleowo, principal investment officer at Microtraction, said molecular diagnostics was a relatively nascent market across most of Sub-Saharan Africa but had established itself in places such as Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. The aim is to replicate this and build a market in Nigeria.

“We believe the founders have not only the right mindset but understand the problem deeply and are also well suited to capture the market opportunity,” said Koleowo.

“We invested in Stack Dx because of the quality and ability of the team to execute and solve a genuinely growing problem in Africa. However, as at the time they applied, they had secured a partnership with a key strategic partner, showing their ability to close complex corporate partnerships which gave us even more confidence in backing a pre-launch startup.”

The post Nigerian e-health startup Stack Dx raises Microtraction funding appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2TkoyEz

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Nigerian diagnostics startup Stack Dx has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage fund Microtraction to help it expand its market share.

With around 80,000 Nigerian women dying annually from breast cancer, and nearly five million from misdiagnosis of hepatitis diseases, Stack Dx was launched to provide molecular diagnostic services to patients, doctors, and hospitals in Africa.

Founded by Abasi Ene-Obong, Damilola Oni, Francis Osifo and Gatumi Aliyu, Stack Dx has developed a seamless online platform that connects patients and health professionals to genetic tests. Many of these tests have not been offered before in Nigeria, such as its predictive cancer tests, pharmacogenetic tests, and liquid biopsies.

The startup also allows health professionals in Nigeria and many African countries, for the first time, to provide targeted treatments to patients and prevent misdiagnosis of diseases at scale.

Stack Dx has now raised funding from Nigerian early-stage investment fund Microtraction, which invests up to US$65,000 in startups at the very earliest stage of their development. The company has backed a host of Nigerian startups in the last year, including Accounteer, Riby, Thank U Cash, CowryWise, Bitkoin Africa, Wallet.ng and Allpro. As ever, the exact amount invested remains undisclosed.

Dayo Koleowo, principal investment officer at Microtraction, said molecular diagnostics was a relatively nascent market across most of Sub-Saharan Africa but had established itself in places such as Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. The aim is to replicate this and build a market in Nigeria.

“We believe the founders have not only the right mindset but understand the problem deeply and are also well suited to capture the market opportunity,” said Koleowo.

“We invested in Stack Dx because of the quality and ability of the team to execute and solve a genuinely growing problem in Africa. However, as at the time they applied, they had secured a partnership with a key strategic partner, showing their ability to close complex corporate partnerships which gave us even more confidence in backing a pre-launch startup.”

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from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2TkoyEz

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African blockchain and cryptocurrency startups have been invited to apply for the Binance Labs Incubation Programme, which offers access to funding and support.

Binance Labs, the venture arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is an initiative to incubate, invest in and empower blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, projects, and communities.

Its incubation programme, which is now launching its second season, offers seed investment of at least US$120,000, and access to mentors, networks and other support resources.

“Binance Labs is the best place for blockchain projects to build their projects and achieve product-market fit. With the African blockchain ecosystem still in it’s nascent stage, this offers tremendous value to African projects, as we are able to plug them into the top one per cent of mentors, founders, investors, and blockchain-focused service providers from the global Binance network,” said Binance director Yele Bademosi.

The programme will take place across five continents, with the African programme based out of Lagos, Nigeria and running from March 25 until May 3. All teams will then gather in Singapore for the last three weeks of the 10-week programme.

Applications are open here until 11.59PM on Wednesday, January 30.

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South African property startup Flow, which has developed an app that rewards tenants for good behaviour, has raised a ZAR20 million (US$1.47 million) funding round to fuels its growth and add to its service.

Founded by Daniel Levy, Gil Sperling and Jonathan Liebmann, Flow rewards tenants for registering, adding their property details, paying their rent on time, and looking after their homes.

It has now secured ZAR20 million in funding, with half coming from South African venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners and the other half from an international VC, which is in its final stages.

Funding will be used to accelerate the development of the app, fuelling growth and increasing the base of tenants already using Flow, as well as to increasing the range of rewards available.

Sperling, chief executive officer (CEO) of Flow, said the property industry, locally and globally, was one of the few verticals which has not seen much innovation, making it an industry ripe for disruption.

“Compared with any other industry, the property industry – and in particular the rental market – is archaic and disconnected. There’s also a massive paradigm shift in how people should rent which is inspired and driven by their lifestyle choices, and is something proptech could and should leverage big time. People are used to being connected all the time and transacting digitally, in real-time; and they want transparency in their dealings with companies, including their landlords,” he said.

“These are some of the key factors that inspired the creation of Flow. Through scaling with technology and economies of scale, we can revolutionise the economics of rent, providing a more seamless experience and more value to tenants.”

Kalon Venture Partners CEO Clive Butkow said the decision to invest in Flow was strongly motivated by the quality of the entrepreneurs and the proven track record they have. This combined with the tech offering they have built made investing an easy decision.

“At Kalon Venture Partners we invest in technologies that are disrupting their respective industries and have large target addressable markets. Flow passed both these criteria with flying colors and also passed our most important investment criteria, which is having the ‘A’ team. The three founders have all built successful businesses, which is quite rare in South Africa, and have the ‘execution intelligence’ to grow a product into a large profitable enterprise,” he said.

The post SA property tech startup Flow raises $1.47m funding round appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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South African solar leasing marketplace Sun Exchange has raised US$1 million from sales of its SUNEX digital rewards token, some way short of its original target of US$5.4 million.

Sun Exchange is a buy-to-lease solar marketplace that leverages cryptocurrency to allow users across the world to buy into solar projects and receive income from the power generated by the projects.

The startup has built a global community of over 14,000 members across 130 countries, and introduced SUNEX, its own digital rewards token, in April of last year with the goal of raising US$5.4 million.

The initial coin offering (ICO) has now come to an end, with Sun Exchange ultimately allocating 28,485,478 SUNEX tokens, the equivalent of US$1,068,205. The startup thanked everyone who had participated in the sale, and said the failure to meet the original target was related to “increasingly challenging ICO market conditions.”

It did, however, say it had gained great exposure as a result of the ICO and built its user base further. Sun Exchange will now continue to raise funding via more traditional means, having last secured equity investment in October. It will also leverage partnerships such as that it has with Powerhive in Kenya to pre-finance solar projects, as it is unable to do so through token sale proceeds as it had originally hoped.

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The World Bank’s ID4D (Identification for Development) initiative is set to host the inaugural Mission Billion Challenge Solveathon in Cape Town on January 31, aiming to create new solutions addressing digital identification systems in developing countries.

Powered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Solve initiative (MIT Solve), Solveathon events are highly interactive design workshops focused on rapid ideation and refinement.

The inaugural event focuses on generating and refining ideas from the Cape Town community in response to the Mission Billion Challenge, which seeks solutions to the fact that over a billion people worldwide have no way to prove their identity.

The Solveathon will focus on the question: how can digital identification systems in developing countries be better designed or adapted to protect people’s privacy and empower them with greater control over their personal data?

Attendees will collaborate to create new solutions throughout the morning; participants are not required to be working on an idea in advance of the workshop – those with interest and expertise in the Challenge question are welcome to join the event.

Registration is available here.  The event takes place January 31, from 9am to 1.30pm, at the Woodstock Exchange in Cape Town.

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African tech startups smashed funding records in 2018 as 210 startups secured US$334.5 million worth of investment, with Nigeria emerging as the premier investment destination on the continent.

This is according to the annual African Tech Startups Funding Report 2018 released by Disrupt Africa, which is now in its fourth year.

The report, which tracks the total amount of funding raised by African tech startups each year, found 210 startups raised a total of US$334,520,500 in funding in 2018. This represented the best year since records began, and a substantial leap on 2017. The number of startups that raised grew by 32.1 per cent, and total funding jumped by an impressive 71.5 per cent.

A key finding of the report was the emergence of Nigeria as Africa’s startup funding hub, after years of playing second fiddle to South Africa. With 58 startups raising a total of US$94,912,000 in investment, the country was clearly top dog; while South Africa fell behind with 40 businesses raising US$59,971,000. Kenya ranked third in terms of the number of startups that raised.

However, other African countries are emerging as more than viable alternative destinations for funding as investors increasingly look beyond the traditional “big three” startup ecosystems. This has been a trend that has been slowly developing over the last few years. Whereas in 2015, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya accounted for more than 80 per cent of total funding raised, in 2018 that had fallen to 61.8 per cent.

Much of that is attributable to the rise of Egypt as a destination for funding, with the country’s startups raising US$58.9 million in 2018, clearly establishing Egypt as a leading startup hub on the continent. Companies in 16 other African countries secured investment.

In terms of sectors, the fintech space continued to dominate, remaining a clear favourite among investors and, at US$132.75 million, accounting for 39.7 per cent of total funds raised. This was an increase on previous years, but nonetheless there are strong signs of progress in other sectors, with multiple ed-tech, e-commerce, e-health, transport, logistics and agri-tech startups raising funding as investors saw opportunities in a large number of areas.

“It has been an incredible year for tech startups in Africa – and it’s a real pleasure to release this report and the impressive figures it contains.  The continent’s entrepreneurs have grabbed the attention of investors, accelerators, and media both locally and globally this year with their innovative solutions and business models, and it’s great to be able to report on such strong results across our ecosystem,” said Gabriella Mulligan, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.

“The African tech space continues on its upward trajectory, with more startups than ever before securing record levels of funding in 2018. Investment levels are not the only way of gauging the health of local ecosystems, but they are a valuable way of following the sector’s progress and demonstrate that, increasingly, if you have an innovative tech solution to a problem, with a strong business model, there are pathways to funding should you require it to scale,” said Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.

For more information, or to order the report, please visit disrupt-africa.com/funding-report, or email Gabriella on gabriella@disrupt-africa.com, or Tom on tom@disrupt-africa.com.

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from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2MHsvAJ