Hi Fintech friends 👋,

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

• NASDAQ-listed South African fintech planned to finalize its $85 million fintech startup acquisition in October 2024.
• Nigeria based Fintech expanded in Kenya with acquisition of a Kenyan startup.
• Egypt based payments startup raised $22 Million in series B extension.
• Africa based VC raised $1 Million to invest in Fintech startups.
• The Uber-backed Fintech mobility African startup expanded in the US.
• Two African Unicorns secured licenses to expand services in new markets.
• UK based money transfer fintech restarted naira transfers to Nigeria for the third time after a two year pause.

💸Fundraise and Exits

• Nigerian investment fintech Rise completed acquisition of Kenya’s Hisa.

• Paymob raised $22 million in Series B extension, achieving profitability in Egypt.

💰 Venture Funds

• First Circle Capital  Africa raised $1 Million from Nyala Facility to invest in Fintechs.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• Uber-backed Moove took its search for profitability to America.

• Wakandi secured the Payment Systems Operator (PSO) license in Uganda.
• Kenya's Safaricom received Payment Facilitator Certificate from Visa, expands payment acceptance models.

• Flutterwave commercially launched its remittance product Send App in Malawi.

• Chipper Cash received a broker-dealer license by Ghana's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

• Wise (formerly TransferWise) restarted naira transfers to Nigeria for the third time after a two year pause.
• Gozem might expand to Mobile Money services amid Super App Shakeup.

👔 Leadership Lineup

• US Authorities piled fresh Pressure on Nigerian Government to Release Binance Executive.

📰 News of the Week

• NASDAQ-listed Lesaka planned to finalise $85 million Adumo acquisition in October.

First announced in May, the deal will expand Lesaka’s consumer and SME merchant financing services into Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia.Through the acquisition, Lesaka claims it will reach 1.7 million customers and 119,000 merchants in the Southern African region. The company currently has 1.5 million customers.

👀 Eye Openers

• If mobile money companies had access to customer deposits , would their fees drop?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and we will publish them in next week’s newsletter.

📑 Read of the week

• Artificial Intelligence Part 2 - AI in Financial Service Provision. (Substack)
• My Africa-China Tech-Business Trip Experience.(Substack)

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• M-KOPA lost an appeal and so it must pay taxes to Kenya.

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• Interview with Sim Shagaya, one of Nigeria's leading entrepreneurs who built groundbreaking ventures like E-Motion, Konga, uLesson and now he entered venture capital space with “The Honey Badger Fund”

🦉 Tweet of the Week

🎯 Fintech Opportunities

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