Hi Fintech friends 👋, 

A lot has happened this week in Fintech, but before we delve into that, I have some exciting news for you;

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This Week in Fintech

We are coming back to Nairobi 🇰🇪 for our 3rd Annual Nairobi Fintech Meetup! Come meet the Opareta team building mobile money agents, as well as our partners Asilimia, Turaco, Peach Payments, Onafriq, HoneyCoin, and DCG.

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

• Three Fintech deals worth over $2.5 Million were announced.
• Four Fintech Partnerships were announced.
• Target Global backed African fintech pivoted to Edtech.
• Nigeria's central bank banned banks and fintechs from international money transfers.
• African’s Unicorn secured release of it’s $3 Million in Kenya
• African based innovation hub launched a platform to enable access to startup funding.
• Opportunity to work in one of three amazing African Fintechs.

💸 Fundraise and Exits

• KoinKoin and SR FINANZMANN closed a $2 million private funding round in a major boost to their corporate OTC business for foreign exchange and digital assets.

• Senegalese startup ProXalys raised $500,000 to scale its invoice-lending management tool.

• Zambian fintech Mighty Finance raised $75,000 funding from Village Capital and Standard Chartered Bank to provide access to capital for primarily women-led businesses.

💰 Venture Funds

• Only Four African Countries Secured >$100m Funding In 2023 + Stark Decline Realities.

• AfriLabs launched Connect Deal Room to boost the local investment landscape.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• Klasha partnered with FOMO Pay to power cross-border payments between Africa and Asia.

• Centenary Bank launched WhatsApp banking in Uganda.

• Tanzania based Fintech NALA announced its updated mission “payments for the next Billion”, as it prepares to launch new payments services for consumers and businesses.

• Rise launched Assetbase to help people invest and trade in private securities across every asset class, vetted by experts.

📰 News of the Week

• Target Global backed African fintech, Kippa pivoted to edtech and its co-founder left the company.

Kippa , a financial management startup backed by Target Global, pivoted from fintech to edtech, offering an AI-powered platform for creating and delivering online courses. In 2023, the company laid off 40 employees after a difficult decision to shut down Kippa Pay, its agency banking business. 

Duke Ekezie, the co-founder and President of Kippa left the company after Kippa Pay, the agency banking product he was in charge of, was shut down. Duke confirmed his exit from the company and has begun working on a different venture he declined to share specifics.

Uche Jepthat, who also co-founded the company left Kippa in November 2022, two months after the startup announced that it raised $8.2 million in a second round of funding, per his Linkedin profile. He has co-founded another business, Earna, which offers benefits and wellness plans to employees.

📑 Read of the week

• African startup equity funding plummets by 43% in 2023. (Benjamidada)

• Incumbents, investors combine to support Africa’s thriving fintech space. (Disrupt Africa).
• Despite glimmers of profit, most African neobanks remain in the red. (Techcrunch)

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• Nigeria’s Central Bank banned banks and Fintechs from international money transfer operations.

• Safaricom stopped  M-PESA transfers to unregistered users.
• Flutterwave secured release of $3 million in Kenya.

• Ghana’s mobile money agents were forced to link accounts to Ghana Cards by February 1 .

• Vodacom Group, including Safaricom topped 200 million customers for the first time - doubling from 100 million in 2018.

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• Interview with Aaron Fu, VC at Digital Currency Group , here he speaks about Venture Capital Mission, Africa Market Complexity and Terrorism Tragedy and Risk.

🦉 Tweet of the Week

🎯 Fintech Opportunities

• Yoco is hiring for a Money Laundering Reporting Officer.
• NALA is hiring for Financial Crime Analyst.
• Tembo is hiring for Head of New Markets.

Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚

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