Hello there,
When shopping offline in Nigeria, you have to answer one question, and depending on your answer, a second follows; the first is "Cash or card?" If you're paying with your card, you'll hear, "Savings or current?"
There's a chance that it might be a different case in the near future in the Central African Republic as the country made a move to officially adopt Bitcoin as a reference currency. This is a huge step forward, giving the general perception of cryptocurrencies in most countries on the continent. A handful of African countries are exploring central bank digital currencies but interestingly, CAR isn’t one of them.
Reference Currency is the primary investment currency of the share class against which the currency hedging transaction will be applied in order to reduce any exchange rate fluctuation with the Hedged Currency.
Towards the end of April, the Parliament of the Central African Republic (CAR) unanimously voted in favour of a bill that recognises Bitcoin as a reference currency. The Central American Republic of El Salvador is the first and only country to consider Bitcoin as a legal tender. Will other African countries rethink their stance toward cryptocurrencies following the CAR's move?
For April 2022 updates from Intelligence by Techpoint, we have:
- African startups did $107 million in April 2022
- Y Combinator in Africa
- Insights from Intelligence’s social media
- Other African updates
- Funds
- Acquisitions
- Intelligence project updates
African startups did $107 million in April 2022
Unlike all the months in Q1 2022, which recorded funding figures slightly below or above half a billion dollars, African startups only raised $107.35 million in April 2022 — about 25% of the lowest amount $421.1m raised in Q1 in January.
Egyptian’s Pylon’s $19 million Seed funding was the highest round of the month compared to previous months with the highest nine-digit rounds.
Like Q1 2022's figures, players in the Financial Services space had the highest share of the amount raised in April 2022, with 40.4%, followed closely by startups in the Services space with 21.9%.
- Total announced deals for the quarter – $107.35 million
- Financial Services received $43.4 million
- Egyptian startups had the largest share with $35.02 million, followed by Nigeria, with $33.55 million
- 22 funding deals
- 11 seed rounds
- 7 pre-seed rounds
- Top deals of the month
- Pylon’s $19 million Seed round
- Umba’s $15 million Series A
- Union54’s $12 million Seed round
- ZirooPay’s $11.4 million Series A
Y Combinator in Africa
Late last year, Intelligence by Techpoint partnered with Y Combinator (YC) for a report examining the California-based technology startup accelerator's impact in Africa. The report was scheduled for release earlier in the year but was delayed to capture African startups in the recently launched W22 cohort.
Established in 2005, YC didn’t get its first African startup until the Winter 2009 cohort. Africa has had 95 startups to date, and YC-backed African startups from across 15 countries had raised $1.3 billion as of March 22, 2022.
The report will be released on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, but subscribers to our newsletter got it earlier. Get the report here.
Other African updates
Acquisitions
- London-headquartered cleantech startup, Bboxx reportedly acquired PEG Africa, another cleantech startup based in Accra
Funds and others
- Tofino Capital, a venture capital firm targeting early-stage startups in emerging markets, has launched its $10 million fund.
- Endeavor South Africa closed ZAR190 million ($13 million) for its Harvest Fund II, meant to support local entrepreneurs.
- Al Mada Holding Group launched a $109.8 million pan-African venture capital fund to invest in fast-growing startups playing in fintech, health-tech, logistics, ed-tech, and renewable energy sectors.
- Pan-African investment company, Unicorn Group, launches incubation programme.
- Egypt-based VC, Algebra Ventures, secures $15m IFC commitment.
Intelligence updates
- Intelligence by Techpoint started conducting polls on social media in April on topics that concern people. And in the few weeks since, we have asked questions about eNaira adoption, popularity of music streaming platforms, and instant messaging usage, among others.
- Intelligence also launched its blog with a post breaking down African Startup funding in Q1 2022; here’s the link if you missed it.
- ICYMI: How Nigeria Startup raised over a billion dollars in 2021.
- The State of Insurance in Nigeria: The third and final data gathering process — which is the hardest part — is ongoing.
- We are working on making this newsletter better. Please share your thoughts by filling out this short four-question survey.
To partner with us on any of our reports, kindly email intelligence@techpoint.africa.
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Do have a nice day.
Yinka Awosanya for Intelligence by Techpoint.
