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Afrikamart Agritech startup aims to be largest African fresh food supplier without owning any farm

December 20, 2019December 20, 2019 Editor

Senegalese Agritech startup Afrikamart aims to be the largest quality fresh food supplier in West Africa. The company aims to become the largest quality fresh food supplier in Africa without owning any farm. ITBusinessDirect spoke to Mignane Diouf its Directeur Général, here is our conversation, In your own words, describe Afrikamart? Afrikamart is an outsourced digital purchase department providing solutions for its customers to help them source good quality fruits and vegetables in their local area or internationally. We leverage on digital to connect the different stakeholders on the value chain,…

Paxful and Binance partner to provide financial inclusion

December 19, 2019 Dianne Jacobs

Binance has announced a partnership deal with Paxful, to provide financial inclusion around the globe. Starting immediately, Paxful- a peer-to-peer bitcoin (BTC) marketplace and web-based Virtual Bitcoin Kiosk – will be integrated and directly available on the Binance platform for new and existing Binance users. Binance is a leading global cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and users. “Paxful is proud to be partnering with Binance in our joint efforts to bring bitcoin to the masses,” said Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful. “They share our passion and vision for the…

Mali based insurtech startup OKO Finance helps rural farmers access crop insurance

December 17, 2019

Malian insurtech startup OKO Finance has helped many rural farmers to access crop insurance for the first time ever. Founded in 2017, OKO develops affordable mobile-based crop insurance products to provide smallholder farmers with the financial security they need, regardless of unstable climate trends. CEO Simon Schwall, spoke to ITBusinessDirect about their plans and activites, here is the conversation What is the story behind OKO Finance? Before starting OKO I worked for a very successful micro-insurance provider called BIMA. I was their local CEO in Papua New Guinea and Fiji…

Visa acquires stake in Nigeria’s Interswitch

November 18, 2019 olivia Craig

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Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirmed today it has reached unicorn status after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm. Global payments giant Visa will invest $200 million for 20% stake in Interswitch, electronic payments company, UK’s Sky News reports. The investment places a billion-dollar valuation on 17-year old Interswitch and is a major boon ahead of a proposed initial public offering slated for the London Stock Exchange next year. “The investment makes Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of $1 billion,”…

West African Market on the radar after Kenya’s Twiga Foods bags $30M Goldman Sachs boost

October 28, 2019 olivia Craig

Kenya’s Twiga Foods has raised a total of $30 million from lenders and investors led by Goldman Sachs. Top American investment bank Goldman Sachs is the latest to acquire a stake in Kenyan start-up Twiga Foods following a Sh2.44 billion ( $23.75 million) deal that will help the agro-based firm spread across the country and Africa. The B2B food distribution company financed $6.25 million of the funding in convertible debt and $23.75 million in equity, classified as a Series B round. IFC, TLcom Capital, and Creadev joined Goldman on the…

PayPal to enter China Market after a 70% stake acquisition in GoPay

October 23, 2019 olivia Craig

PayPal Becomes The First Foreign Payment Platform In China

PayPal will become one of the first international companies to gain a payments license in China, after news emerged that the state-owned People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has greenlighted PayPal’s acquisition of a majority stake in local company GoPay. PayPal, through one of its local China-based subsidiaries called Yinbaobao, will acquire a 70% stake in GoPay, according to a statement on GoPay’s website [in Chinese]. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2019. The company’s full statement on the acquisition is below: The People’s Bank of China has approved…

Jumia’s stock has reportedly lost more than half of its value since its NYSE public IPO

October 18, 2019 Staff Writer

Jumia, the ‘African’ ecommerce company that has its corporate headquarters in Dubai and operations in 14 African countries including Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, continues to struggle after an initial good run at the New York Stock Exchange. It’s stock closed at $6.68, an all-time low, on Friday, with the market cap going down to ~$520 million. For the sake of context, the Rocket Internet-founded Jumia had become a unicorn (with a valuation of $1.08 billion) in 2016 (when it was known as Africa Internet Group or AIG) after raising…

Singapore based Credit scoring fintech company, CredoLab, launches in Kenya

October 16, 2019

Alternative credit scoring fintech company, CredoLab, launched in Kenya recently is lined to drive financial inclusion by credit scoring more people, especially those who are new to bank and credit. CredoLab announced that it is in negotiations with the large financial institutions, digital banks, credit bureaus, consumer lenders and retail operations in Kenya. Michel Massain, Sales for Europe and Africa at CredoLab says, “With the trend in Kenya of banks shifting from traditional banking halls to digital platforms, our alternative credit scoring technology is perfectly timed to help lenders provide…

Cellulant’s super payments app Tingg unveiled in 8 African countries

October 8, 2019

Cellulant the African fintech company has Tuesday announced the launch of Tingg, an all-in-one, multi-functional consumer super app that will include a wide array of payment, commerce and financial services into a single platform that will revolutionize the way customers interact with digital payment services in the continent. The pan-African payments firm has been quietly building a payments super app to bring bill payments, remittances, lending, group investments, food and gas orders in one app in its eight markets across Africa. The firm has now announced a major rebrand of…

The New Ethiopian Government to address the grievances raised over the issue of diaspora shares confiscated by NBE

September 24, 2019September 26, 2019 olivia Craig

Ethiopia’s parliament recently passed a bill to open up the country’s financial sector to an estimated five million citizens living abroad or with dual nationality, including allowing them to buy shares in local banks and start lending businesses. Reports Reuters The changes are part of a raft of economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he came to power last year, partly aimed at boosting the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which had dropped precariously low. “The law will enable the Ethiopian born diaspora to take part in the…