Flutterwave employs 170 trainees, The Africa Money and DeFi Summit and Emata gets a $2.4 million seed financing.
Here are the highlights of tech around Africa for the week:
- Flutterwave employs 170 trainees
- The Africa Money and DeFi Summit
- Emata gets a $2.4 million seed financing
Flutterwave employs 170 trainees
A year after starting its Graduate Trainee Program, Flutterwave, a unicorn in the African fintech industry, has hired around 85% of the 200 graduate trainees who were a part of its first cohort. The 12-month paid traineeship program aims to give recent graduates practical job experience at a large, over-750-employee organization while providing them with technical and soft skills training.
Over 170 graduate trainees (GTs) have made the switch from being GTs to full-time workers as Analysts and Engineers in the past 12 months. The initiative was introduced in August 2022 with the goal of creating a network of young talent and providing them with technical and soft skills.
Through this program, Flutterwave has achieved its goal of offering limitless chances to everyone.
The Africa Money and DeFi Summit in Accra
The Africa Money and DeFi Summit has announced nine ventures selected to showcase their Web3, Blockchain, Fintech, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) businesses to investors and industry leaders live on stage in Accra, Ghana on October 3rd and 4th. The West Africa edition drew applications from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Namibia, and Côte d’Ivoire. The ventures are:
With the help of the stablecoin payment platform Hurupay (Ghana), African businesses can now accept stablecoin payments from clients as a more secure and dependable payment option, all while removing worries about currency depreciation or expensive transaction fees. Save App (Kenya) is disrupting the saving habits of African consumers by reshaping their perspective on spare change.
By changing how African customers view spare change, Save App (Kenya) is reshaping their saving practices.
Innovative blockchain solutions are being made available to businesses and people by Nigeria's Coinazer, which also offers a secure environment for users to purchase, trade, and store a variety of cryptocurrencies.
For remittance and payment firms looking to innovate cost-effectively in the Francophone African market, PAL (Cote d'Ivoire) serves as an off-ramp. PAL is a digital banking platform and liquidity provider.
Safi Protocol is a Web3 business from Kenya that uses Decentralized Finance (DeFi) to increase climate resilience. The startup aims to close the worldwide liquidity gap by tokenizing qualifying real-world clean energy projects. The renewable energy sector in Africa and Southeast Asia currently has a financing shortage of $1 billion.
An online marketplace called VerifiBuy (Ghana) was created with the goal of reducing the distrust that exists between buyers and sellers.
A digital payment solution platform called BloPay (Ghana) enables companies and merchants to instantaneously receive card payments and MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) payments from their clients into their bank accounts.
One Chain Africa (Nigeria) addresses the obstacles to blockchain innovation and adoption in Africa by fostering the development of a more open and accessible blockchain ecosystem on the continent, enabling stablecoin deployment for each nation, integrating on-chain KYC infrastructure, and promoting the spread of blockchain technology.
For Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Millennials, PayBox (Ghana) is leading innovation in cross-border payment and financial transfers across more than 23 African nations.
Key industry players like Amazon Web Services, HBAR, EMTECH, Native Teams, One Liquidity, International Trade Centre, Raenest, BudPay, Fuse, Turaco, Okra, Wewire Africa, Waza, Fonbnk, Fez Delivery, Fincra, and Semoa are supporting the Africa Money and DeFi Summit, which will bring together African fintech and cryptocurrency leaders with global players.
Emata gets a $2.4 million seed financing
A $2.4 million seed round was obtained by the Ugandan firm Emata, which provides inexpensive loans to farmers. $1.6 million in debt and $800,000 in equity financing made up the seed round. Emata plans to expand into Tanzania and utilize the funds to support its services there.
Marcus Boström and Zephyr Acorn were among the angel investors that participated in the round, which was supported by African Renaissance Partners, Norrsken Accelerator, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and others. Emata was one of nine businesses from Africa chosen for the Norrsken Impact Accelerator in June 2022.
Sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture contributes 23% of the country's GDP, but if the area's smallholder farmers had additional land, they may contribute more. Numerous farmers rely on credit, and the continent's agricultural finance shortfall is estimated to be worth $240 billion.
The continent's agricultural financing shortfall is estimated to be $240 billion, and many farmers depend on costly bank loans. Emata fills this finance vacuum by providing smallholder farmers with no-collateral loans. Emata provides farmers with automatic loans through collaborating with cooperatives and groups centred on farmers. These collaborators also assist Emata in obtaining farmer loans.
Bram van den Bosch, the founder and CEO of Emata, said of the fund round: "
We are happy to conclude our $2.4 million seed fundraise, supported by high-profile, impact-oriented investors who understand the enormous potential of digital Agri-loans in East Africa, and beyond. Emata challenges farmers to dream big and removes historical barriers that have prevented the great majority of farmers from accessing agricultural credit. A lifelong battle is reduced to a five-minute procedure by our approach, which is already having a noticeable effect on thousands of farmers in East Africa”.