A new series of venture capital investments in Africa has started up in the last few months Aprilkesslerpropublica . These investments are being made in a number of sectors in the region, including food and agricultural, education and health, and business and technology. The ventures are called APIS Sub Saharan Africa Series Ventures, and they are currently investing in a range of companies, from startups to large corporations. They include Pngme, Youverify, Adumo, Tyme, and Stitch.
Adumo
Adumo is a South African payments company delivering innovative and value added solutions to merchants in the country. Its main focus is on payments support. The company has developed a variety of payment processing solutions for retailers, informal traders, and multi-national merchants. It has recently expanded its operations to include other regions of the continent. In the past year, Adumo has acquired several new payment processing solutions mytoptweets.
One of the company’s most recent transactions was a $170 million Series C round of funding from Avenir Growth and Tiger Global Management. This is the largest Series C round secured by an African tech startup.
Stitch
Stitch is the leading API FinTech startup in Africa. It enables consumers and businesses to make secure payments and access financial accounts. They also offer identity and data APIs that allow developers to integrate their apps with financial accounts economictimes .
Stitch started out in South Africa and plans to expand into other African markets. The company is building a “financial graph” that enables companies to develop code once and scale quickly. With the help of this infrastructure, a business can reduce conversion cost, time and effort to launch products and services.
Stitch has customers from a wide range of industries, including payment service providers, subscription and e-commerce players. It has recently launched a payments solution in South Africa and is planning to expand into West and East Africa xfire.
Youverify
Youverify, a San Francisco-based startup, has been around for a little over four years, and recently raised a seed round of $2.5 million. The company offers a simple API that allows customer companies to connect with a verifier. They’ve also made partnerships with telecommunication companies and the government. In the process, they’ve managed to streamline the verification process and help African banks and other businesses meet KYC (know your customer) regulations. Their recent expansion into South Africa, Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire is proof that the right technology can go a long way in making the world a safer place.
For example, the company has a cool-looking machine learning system called SmartHub that analyzes millions of records per second and provides users with instantaneous answers to questions related to their data. In addition, the company has recently announced a $110 million joint venture with Interswitch, the largest global payments network.
Bitmama
There are many reasons to invest in the sub-Saharan African region, ranging from political stability to the ability to attract the best and the brightest. One of the key challenges is the lack of a cohesive payments infrastructure, which has led to a fragmented payments ecosystem. While most multinationals have a presence in the region, they have a hard time reaching the full consumer base. A solution such as the Bitmama Wallet may be the solution to this problem.
The company is based out of Claymont, Delaware, USA and serves both the Nigerian and Ghanaian markets. The company has recorded $6 million in transaction volume so far this year. Despite the fact that it is relatively new to the scene, it has managed to bolster its team and its products.
Tyme
The Tyme Group of companies has been at the forefront of digital banking in emerging markets. TymeBank is a sub-brand of the group. It offers a wide range of banking services, from transactional bank accounts to savings products. In addition, TymeBank is the first South African bank to operate off a cloud-based infrastructure network.
To date, TymeBank has attracted a hefty R500 million in investment from investors such as the Gokongwei family of the Philippines, Tencent, Apis Partners, and the Asian Development Bank. With this investment, TymeBank will be well on its way to achieving its goal of becoming the leading digital bank in South Africa.
Pngme
Pngme is a fintech startup based in the United States that provides a unified financial data API for Sub-Saharan Africa. This platform combines data from multiple sources to build a comprehensive picture of an individual’s finances. Using this data, Pngme encourages the adoption of personalized financial products. Its solutions aim to increase the lifetime value of a customer.
The San Francisco-based company raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Octopus Ventures, followed by individual angel investors like Raptor Group, Lateral Capital, and EchoVC. Pngme plans to use the funding to expand its executive team, as well as to grow its machine learning-as-a-service platform.
