Indepth – WeeTracker

Readyguide on the African FaaS Industry

AfriCo Insights — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 07:52:35 +0000

It has been reported that agricultural production has registered highest growth in Sub-Saharan Africa in the past 20 years. But there's a shift in farming habits as the younger population is either finding newer ways to engage with farming or simply moving away from it.

About 60 percent farmer population in Sub-Saharan Africa is small holder farmers. It is said that if the right investments are made into improving farming techniques and input material, Africa could add another 20 percent of grains to the current worldwide output.

With enormous potential and promising returns, more and more technology are venturing into increasing farm produce and farming productivity.

Access our Readyguide on Farming-as-a-Service in Africa with the complete list of funding details.

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The State Of Ugandan Startup Ecosystem

AfriCo Insights — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 12:40:29 +0000

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South African Venture Capital Performance 2020

AfriCo Insights — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 06:40:00 +0000

South African ventures/ tech companies have received a lot of attention from local and global VCs. With a population of 57.8 million, the country’s market is robust and has higher purchasing capacities, on an average, in the continent.

In the pandemic hit 2020, South Africa was one of the most proactive countries to initiate a lockdown without losing a single life. The slowdown in the economy did not influence the venture capital investments of South Africa in 2020, at least seemingly. When the data is observed closely, it is found that investments in 3 companies have contributed to the upsurge in numbers over the last year’s figures.

The ventures in South Africa in 2020 raised USD 175 Mn in over 80 deals spread across 20+ industries.

If these top 3 deals – Jumo USD 55 Mn, Skynamo USD 30 Mn and Aerobotic’s USD 17 Mn are removed from the investment figures, the growth over last year’s figures stands at 8.95%. It would be interesting to note that the top deal in 2019 was USD 12 Mn.

The VC firms that played a pivotal part in keeping the ecosystem bright during the gloomy period include – Kalon Venture Partners, Naspers Foundry and Enygma Ventures.

The data is based on the number of deals

The Fintech Industry, Information Technology, Analytics and Big Data led the chart as the top industries with higher fundraise and investment deals. For instance, ventures falling under the financial services & fintech sector claimed 40 percent of the total funding raised.

Several new entrants made way into the 2020 funding list of the startup ecosystem. Native Nylon, an eComm platform that raised USD 13K in an equity round, and LetMeIn, an InfoTech startup with a seed round of USD 140K from an undisclosed investor are a few examples.

3 acquisition deals took place in 2020, interestingly all of them were for an undisclosed amount. Africa Fashion International acquired Wezart. Cape Town-based social media content company Over got acquired by GoDaddy. Knife capital-backed Snapplify acquired Onnie Media/ Teacha.

Four new fund launches, focussed on early-stage startups to growth-stage startups made their mark on 2020 investment landscape. Enygma Venture, which was also among the most active investors, launched a USD 7 Mn fund for early-stage women-led businesses in Africa.

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The State Of FinTech In Africa – 2020

Team WeeTracker — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 08:06:52 +0000

FinTechs have gained widespread attention and have disrupted the financial sector across both developing and developed countries. Due to the low coverage of traditional financial services in Africa, the fintech sector has significantly grown over the past decade. AfriCo, a business intelligence platform providing data on private & public companies in Africa states that as of 2020, there are 674 active fintech companies in the African continent, about 80% of which are of domestic origin. Data from AfriCo further reveals that there 2020 saw 97 venture capital deals in the African fintech sector valued at USD 250 million, a sharp decline compared to USD 678 million raised by fintech startups in 2019.

Is this the bubble burst? Or just the Pandemic effect?

VC activity in the fintech space dropped by 6.7% when compared to 2019. The number of fintech companies that received more than USD 1 Mn also declined to 21 companies, a 25% decline compared to 2019. While the ongoing pandemic has raised demands for fintech services, the decline in investments compared to 2019 can be attributed to overall drop in investment activity as well as the increase in attractiveness of healthtech as a potential investment opportunity. Similar to fintech sectors in developed and other developing countries, the payments sector dominates the African FinTech arena. 24% of the total venture money raised by fintech companies went into the payments sector.

Will Investors look farther than these 5 African Countries?

The growth of the African fintech sector is highly concentrated in a few countries. The four main fintech hubs are Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

These 4 African countries made up ~85% of the total fintech investments in Africa in 2019 and received ~82% of the total investment in 2020. As these hubs get crowded with more and more fintech solutions as well as more and more capitalists, newer markets have to be explored by both entrepreneurs & early stage investors to target the next billion.

In 2020, countries such as Ghana, Uganda and Zambia gained prominence when it comes to number of investments in the fintech space as well as total startups upcoming every quarter.

US based founders & investors are leading the fintech revolution in Africa

An emerging trend in the fintech & startup space in general is foreign-headquartered companies raising a major chunk of total investments raised. Typically, these firms have their headquarters outside the African continent but they operate through their offices in one or more African cities. Foreign players in the African fintech market are predominantly based out of the US.

In 2020, Chipper Cash raised USD 35 million led by various US based investors; which was among the highest raised by fintech players in 2020. Another example of a large ticket investment in fintech & foreign headquartered company was Flutterwave raising USD 35 million as part of Series B funding from a bunch of investors led by Greycroft and eVentures, both US based investors.

To a better year and larger impact

The 2020 venture capital investment data shows a decline in the percentage of investment in fintech when compared to the previous year. As much as the pandemic pushed the world into a depression, it increased the need for contactless payments thereby growing the market for electronic payments as well as other financial inclusion companies. Fintech startups in Africa are poised to grow in 2021, the pace of growth, however is yet to be determined. Will the US investors lead the pack again in building for the next billion? Will there be new investment hotspots? Will the governments create policies to push or pull technocrats. The next 3 months will subtly set the course.

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Tales Of Despair & Hope: An Overview Of Zimbabwe’s Business Scene

Team WeeTracker — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 10:51:05 +0000

If the overall economic situation in Zimbabwe were to be described in one word, then "rollercoaster" seems like the perfect fit.

The Southern African country has been stuck in some sort of economic rut for as long as anyone can remember. And even though, in all fairness, there have been sprinkles of hope in-between, the malaise is one that has become a long-standing issue, spanning decades. As a result, locals have found it hard to get by, as have their businesses.

“Zimbabwe was stagnated economically for almost 20 years with no real investment,” says William Ponela, Founder and CEO of Zimbabwe’s Zonful Energy. “This has created a huge gap in between Zimbabwe and the world,” he adds.

Zimbabwe's economic instability is inextricably linked to the socio-political turbulence that has enveloped the country over the years.

As the political instability brought about economic downtimes, the ripple effect of the latter has disrupted multiple sectors of the economy -- from industries dominated by large corporates to the informal sector, and even the local tech ecosystem.

A tale of troubles

Among the myriad economic metrics that tell a tale of doom and gloom, Zimbabwe's inflation numbers and the consequent repeated currency collapse are issues that blow the mind, and not in a good way.

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Mapping 30+ Microlending Startups In Africa & Measures Taken To Survive COVID-19

WT Research — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 05:00:00 +0000

The Metamorphosis of Micro-Lending

When Bangladeshi national and economics professor, Mohammed Yunus, introduced the concept of microlending over 40 years ago, the idea was to uplift village artisans who were hamstrung by poverty despite their skill.

In those days, basket weavers in their homeland were considered poor credit risks and, thus, were forced to borrow money at high-interest rates to be able to purchase bamboo. In the end, they made no profit after repaying moneylenders.

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Cross-Border Investing: The Most Active US-Based VCs in Africa

WT Research — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 03:12:00 +0000

Africa’s evolution to cross-border investing has been interesting, but more so, challenging for Venture Capitalists. Traditionally, VCs pump money into businesses and geographies they understand, while tending to be skeptical about businesses in emerging markets.

Concerns around regulatory risks, regional stability, market size, distance from their headquarters which increase oversight costs, all have at one point made it difficult to get U.S-based VCs on board.

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