Story of the Week: COMESA’s New Payments Platform Could Reboot Intra-Africa Trade for Startups

Hey, Kaluka here,

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) launched its Digital Retail Payments Platform last week. The aim of this is to enable cross-border trades in local African currencies rather than relying on the U.S. dollar.

This is good news for African startups, especially those involved in e-commerce, logistics, supply chains and cross-border services. It will translate to lower transaction costs, fewer currency conversion frictions and smoother payments across borders. Of course, execution will matter, how well the system handles settlement risk, liquidity, and regulatory alignment will decide its real impact.

If you are a founder, this is a signal that the infrastructure layer is catching up. Now is the time to plan cross-border plays, test multi-currency billing models and push local regulators to support interoperability.

If you’re a founder building something bold, now’s a good time to raise. If you have a startup you want featured on TechArena, let us know through this contact form here.

Last week, we tracked 8 funding rounds across Africa that raised about $31.9 million.

🇿🇦 Ahana - Secured $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from FasterCapital. Ahana Digital is a next-generation connectivity company on a mission to connect the unconnected and bridge Africa’s digital divide.

🇳🇬 Smpdltd - Secured $500,000 in Pre-seed funding from FasterCapital. SMPD Ltd is an agribusiness venture committed to unlocking the value of Nigerian agriculture.

🇪🇬 Renewables Vault - Raised $50,000 in Seed Funding**.** Renewables Vault operates a digital platform for trading renewable energy assets through blockchain.

🇪🇬 Tagaddod - Raised $26.3m Series A led by ed by The Arab Energy Fund (TAEF), FMO, VKAV, and A15. Tagaddod collects, aggregates, and traces renewable waste-based feedstocks from thousands of suppliers.

🇺🇬 Zymera Agricultural Company - Raised $309,000 from FasterCapital. Zymera is a Ugandan agribusiness venture focused on establishing a 100-acre commercial Hass avocado plantation.

🇲🇺 Obluxe - Raised $159,000 in a Pre-Seed round from FasterCapital. Obluxe is pioneering sustainable and renewable energy integration through innovative solar technologies.

🇳🇬 Rulesbase - Raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from Bowery Capital, Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, and some angels. Rulesbase provides AI agents for customer service back-office operations in financial services

🇪🇬 Sabika - Raised an undisclosed amount for platform enhancements, expansion. Sabika provides secure, transparent and asset-backed investment options

We had 9 investors participate in last week’s rounds:

Total disclosed funding: $31,918,000 million across 9 rounds.

Feedstock & Sustainability Startups Scale Up in MENA and Africa

Tagaddod’s large Series A is a strong headline for sustainability / clean-tech plays rooted in African markets. Their focus on renewable feedstocks and expansion into adjacent regions shows that climate / circular-economy startups are crossing the chasm from niche to growth.

This matters because many founders building in agriculture, waste-to-energy, bioeconomics, and circular models often struggle with capital intensity and long time horizons. Seeing a robust round like this can attract new investor interest and reduce risk perception for the sector as a whole.

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That’s it for this week’s issue of Africa Startup Weekly. If you enjoyed the look into telecom-eCommerce synergy, share it with someone building at the intersection of tech and infrastructure.

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