Happy Thursday!
There has been some really interesting funding announcements in the last week. I would be covering them in this issue
The one about Lidya
Lidya a two-year-old Lagos based startup has raised $6.9M in Series A funding led by impact investment firm Omidyar Network with participation from Alitheia Capital, Bamboo Capital Partners, and Tekton Ventures.
Lidya analyzes over 100 data points to build a customized credit score, assess a customer for a loan and disburse loans to qualified businesses in as little as 48 hours. The company offers unsecured load of up to $15,000 to small and medium-sized businesses. Lidya currently operates in Nigeria where 20,000 businesses have signed up for its service and has provided 1,500 business loans to SMEs
Lidya is obviously growing really fast as only a year ago, the company closed a $1.25M seed round from Accion Venture Lab.
Lidya was a co-founded by Tunde Kehinde, he co-founded Jumia
The one about Janngo
Fatoumata Bâ, co-founder & CMO at Jumia Côte d’Ivoire is launching Janngo, Africa’s first ‘social startup studio’ and has raised €1 m in early stage funding
The startup studio as opposed to an accelerator or incubator will have an in-house team of Entrepreneurs-in-residence who will build products and solutions targeted at African SMEs. These Entrepreneurs will be aided by Janngo to validate and expand beyond their local markets.
The one about Piggybank
Piggybank a two-year fintech startup has raised $1.1M in seed funding led by Leadpath a Lagos based seed capital fund with participation from Village Capital and Ventures Platform.
Piggybank allows it’s users to intuitively save while earning up to 10 percent in interest. The company will use it’s newly raise funding to acquire licenses and develop the product further.
I am particularly excited about this fund raise because the three participants in the deal are local investors. I am looking forward to more fund raise of this magnitude led by local funds.
TC
And that’s a wrap. If you enjoy this newsletter, I’d love it if you’d tweet or forward to the two people who you think would enjoy it most.
Until next week,
Wole