Hello,
Welcome to this week’s newsletter. This is going to be a very short one as not that much happened last week.
The biggest story, at least for me, was Amazon officially launching in South Africa. amazon.co.za is now live in the country and is offering direct delivery in addition to supporting 3,000 pickup points as of now. It has also partnered with Pargo and The Courier Guy for its pickup location option. The launch was expected last year but there have been delays till now.
With South Africa out of the way, I expect Amazon to launch in Nigeria next.
Startup Funding Rounds
We had only 2 funding rounds both by Egyptian startups with a total of $7.5 million raised.
Swypex, an Egyptian that develops spend management software, raised $4 million from Accel, Foundation Ventures and The Raba Partnership.
MNZL, a financial services startup in Egypt, raised $3.5 million in seed funding from P1 Ventures, Localglobe and Ingressive Capital.
Active Investors
Last week saw a total of 26investors who took part in the 2 funding rounds. These are P1 Ventures, Localglobe, Ingressive Capital, Accel, Foundation Ventures and The Raba Partnership.
Appointments
Safaricom Investment Co-Operative Appoints Churchill Winstone Ochieng’ as New Chief Executive Officer.
Opportunities and jobs
Google is now Accepting Applications for its 2024 Hustle Academy Cohort. To apply, visit g.co/hustleacademy.
Africa’s Business Heroes Extends 2024 Application Deadline to June 9. Applications can be made here: https://AfricaBusinessHeroes.org/en/nominate.
Other Stories
BuuPass Acquires Quickbus to Expand Operations to Nigeria And South Africa.
4 Kenyan Ventures Among the 15 Selected for the Africa Tech Summit Investment Showcase in London.
Showmax 2.0 has Officially Launched in Kenya.
2 Kenyan Non-profits Selected for Google’s First Generative AI Accelerator.
Safaricom’s operating profit hits Ksh 140 billion.
SA Fintech Lesaka acquires payment platform,Adumo in a $85.9 million deal.
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