[ad_1] Youverify, a Nigerian supplier of id verification and anti-money laundering (AML) options for banks and startups, secured a $2.5 million funding from Elm, which focuses on providing ready-made and customised digital options to private and non-private establishments in Saudi Arabia. The pre-Sequence A funding from Elm additionally features a strategic partnership to assist Youverify streamline AML compliance for companies, bolster world threat intelligence, and increase its merchandise into new markets. Since 2022, Youverify has expanded its real-time enterprise verification protection to 145 jurisdictions throughout 48 international locations. Moreover, the platform gives protection for real-time particular person verification, together with…
Author: Tage Kene-Okafor
[ad_1] Final month, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest startup by personal valuation, was concerned in a hack that resulted in over ₦2.9 billion (~$4.2 million) lacking from its accounts, in response to native tech publication Techpoint Africa. In keeping with the paperwork seen by the publication and reviewed by TechCrunch, unknown actors transferred the funds throughout 28 accounts in 63 transactions in early February. Police investigations are ongoing as Flutterwave, by way of authorized counsel and legislation enforcement events, has filed a movement and seeks to freeze accounts throughout 27 monetary establishments that interacted with the lacking funds, Techpoint Africa reported. A number…
[ad_1] Africa, bucking international tendencies, raised extra VC {dollars} in 2022 than 2021. However its unicorn record stayed stagnant The African tech scene was met with fanfare in 2021: Enterprise capital investments within the area totaled between $4 billion and $5 billion and produced 5 unicorns. In my piece detailing this progress, I predicted there can be extra unicorns in 2022. These predictions proved to be approach off the mark by 12 months’s finish. Information from market insights trackers Briter Bridges and The Large Deal reveal that funding raised by African startups exceeded $5 billion (together with undisclosed offers) in…
[ad_1] In April, startup accelerator Techstars, in partnership with ARM Labs, a Lagos-based innovation program specializing in fintech startups, introduced the launch of ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator Program. As Techstars’ latest accelerator program in Africa, the announcement re-emphasized the enlargement plans Techstars touted when it employed Maëlle Gavet as CEO final January. The Lagos accelerator provides to the lengthy listing of devoted generalist and specialist applications the agency has managed to create globally over the previous couple of years. Corporations that get accepted into any of those three-month applications obtain $20,000 plus a $100,000 convertible be aware in alternate for six%…
[ad_1] A lot of the world’s consideration round blockchain is on the highs and lows of cryptocurrency values. Startups like FlexID remind us that distributed ledger expertise has the potential to play different roles, together with providing trusted data of identities with out the necessity for a centralized authority. One of many startups working in direction of this imaginative and prescient is Zimbabwe’s FlexID, which is constructing a blockchain-based identification system for these excluded from the banking system as a consequence of their lack of identification paperwork. FlexID’s concept has received it funding from Algorand, a blockchain protocol created by…
[ad_1] Zambian card issuing fintech Union54 has raised $12 million in a seed extension spherical led by Tiger World. Different taking part traders on this financing spherical embody current ones similar to Vibe VC and new traders Earl Gray Capital and Packy Mccormick’s Not Boring Capital. It’s been solely six months since Union54, whose API permits African software program firms to problem and handle their debit playing cards without having a financial institution or third-party processor, introduced its seed spherical of $3 million, additionally led by Tiger World. Union54 founders launched the corporate final yr once they went by painstaking…
[ad_1] The variety of POS terminals in Nigeria grew from 150,000 in 2017 to 543,000 in April 2021, in keeping with Statista. Throughout that interval, the quantity of POS funds within the nation additionally elevated tremendously, hitting greater than 500 billion as of Could 2021. In Nigeria, POS terminals are used to course of card funds at retail places in addition to for company banking functions, a branchless banking system the place brokers act like human ATMs. And whereas terminals have completely different suppliers (banks and fintechs) and functionalities, they primarily function on-line with just a handful of them having offline capabilities…
[ad_1] In a rustic the place 50% of its 100 million individuals are energetic smartphone customers, two out of each three people have little or no entry to formal monetary providers in Egypt. With banks doing their finest to deepen monetary providers to the underbanked and unbanked throughout the North African nation, startups are additionally taking part in their half. One such supplier is Cairo-based Khazna — a self-described “monetary tremendous app” that has raised a $38 million Sequence A in debt and fairness. The corporate has obtained a complete of $47 million since its inception. The corporate, based by…
[ad_1] World monetary transactions are facilitated primarily by cost processors akin to Visa or Mastercard. They’re liable for communication between banks and fintechs to settle transactions for customers and companies swiftly. Africa has it completely different. It’s not a predominantly card continent. Telecoms and banks lead the vast majority of on-line monetary transactions carried out within the area through cellular cash wallets and financial institution accounts. However right here’s the problem: Whereas each methods are likely to work effectively when customers make transactions inside their distinctive atmosphere, there’s no interoperability for transactions between them. An alternate cost community with related…
[ad_1] Jambo, a Congo-based startup constructing Africa’s web3 person acquisition portal via “be taught, play, earn” and democratizing entry to crypto-based income-generation alternatives, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding. Specialists say Africa is poised to be disrupted by web3 in a similar way that has seen Southeast Asia turn out to be among the finest markets for web3. The latter is house to startups like Axie Infinity and Yield Guild Video games, which have raised tens of millions of {dollars} in enterprise capital owing to the adoption of crypto and play-to-earn fashions. The combination of positives corresponding to a…