Hi Fintech friends 👋

Here are the highlights of what happened in African Fintech this week;

• Two Fintech deals worth $7 Million were announced including one exit.
• One Fintech startup shut down its operations after failing to raise funds.
• The SEC suspended trading activity of an African Agri-Fintech startup that was listed on the stock exchange.
• The founder of an Africa-based unicorn shared insights into how his startup is navigating and thriving amid the economic slowdown.

💸Fundraises and Exits

• Shekel, an African mobility fintech, raised $7 million to assist car dealers in finding, financing, and selling cars in the $30 billion African used car market.
• Techstars and Ripple-backed fintech Chimoney acquired the Nigerian social payments app Scrim.

💰 Venture Funds

• InDrive launched a $100 million ventures and M&A arm to invest in Ride-Hail, Insurtech, and Fintech startups across emerging markets.
• Here is the list and terms of most active African early stage investors.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• Tanzanian Fintech NALA received a Payment Service Provider license from the National Bank of Rwanda to offer remittance and payment services.

• South African fintech company Paycorp launched CryptoExpress to enable users withdraw their cryptocurrency as cash.
• Kenya's fintech company, Cellulant, obtained a Payment Service Provider license from the Egyptian government.
• Ghanaian fintech startup KudiGo launched a platform to power social commerce.
• African crypto startup, Yellow Card introduced PYUSD, a stablecoin by PayPal, on their platform.

📰 News of the Week

• The SEC suspended trading activity for African Agri-fintech, Tingo Group on the stock exchange. 

5 months ago, Hindenburg Research accused Nigerian company Tingo Group of being an "obvious scam" with fabricated financials, including false claims about a $1.6 billion food processing plant and deceptive information about expansion to Ghana. 

• Zazuu, a U.K.-based and Africa-focused fintech that raised $2 million to aggregate remittance services, shut down after failing to raise funds.

Zazuu, despite raising $2 million last year from investors like Launch Africa, Founders Factory Africa, ODBA, HoaQ, Tinie Tempah, Jason Njoku, and Babs Ogundeyi, has shut down after facing challenges in securing new funding. The startup aimed to address high fees in Sub-Saharan Africa attributed to a lack of transparency in rates and fees. Notably, according to the World Bank, sending $200 in the region costs an average of 8%, making sub-Saharan Africa the most expensive region for money transfers compared to a global average of about 6%.

📑 Read of the week

• The Case for Venture Capital in Africa: 10 Lessons from an Early-Stage VC – Iyin Aboyeji, who also co-founded two African Unicorns: Andela and Flutterwave (Dabafinance)
• Addressing low transparency in commissions of mobile money agents (Medium)

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• Paystack laid off 33 employees outside of Africa
• Ghana’s Central Bank banned Lemfi, Wise, and six other fintechs from offering remittance services without regulatory approval.

• M-PESA processed more than $371 billion in value in the last 12 months and thus became a $1 billion per day fintech platform.

• After suspending customer withdrawals in May 2023, the Nigerian Web3 platform Patricia announced that customers would start regaining access to their funds from November 20.
• Leatherback CEO Ibrahim Ibitade denied hiding from Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after wanted notice.
• African banks took over after international lenders exit .
• List of loan apps approved by Central Bank of Nigeria

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• Ham Serunjogi: How Chipper Cash is Surviving the Slowdown

🦉 Tweet of the Week

Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚

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