Kenyan start-ups secure record funding in Africa
Monday May 03 2021
The entrepreneurial spirit has been growing across Kenya’s agri-tech, e-commerce, fintech and logistics sub-sectors.
The growth has attracted large funding rounds from international venture capitalists (VCs) and institutions on solid and proven investments.
Between 2015 and 2020, for example, investments in the country increased to Sh26 billion from Sh20.8 billion ($191.4 million), representing a 27.3 percent of the continent’s total investment.
Nigeria came second with Sh16.3 billion followed by South Africa (Sh15.5 billion), Egypt (Sh15.4 billion), Ghana (Sh2.2 billion) and Morocco at Sh1.1 billion.
“This is the largest amount of funding ever achieved by a single country. The record was previously also held by Kenya, when in 2019 the country’s start-ups netted Sh16.2 billion ($149.2 million),” Disrupt Africa Tech Startups 2020 Funding report shows.
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Orange Ventures débute son nouveau mandat avec une dotation de 350 millions d euros
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The big story: Parler sues Amazon after going offline
President Donald Trump has found himself banned from most of the major social media and internet platforms, with companies pointing to his role in inciting the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol last week, as well as his continuing statements expressing support for the rioters.
Right-wing social network Parler might seem like an obvious beneficiary of those bans, but the app itself has come under scrutiny Apple and Google removed it from their respective app stores for failing to moderate comments calling for violent or criminal behavior, and Amazon Web Services followed suit, resulting in the social network going offline.
France-based operator Orange flagged the expansion of its venture capital activities with the creation of a new, independent unit called Orange Ventures that will have a pot of around 350 million (US$425.4 million) for startup investments.
Orange Ventures has taken over the portfolio of Orange Digital Ventures, which was launched with an initial funding allocation of 20 million ($24.3 million) in 2015 and grew into a 150 million ($182.4 million) corporate early-stage investment fund.
The aim is to give the VC unit greater freedom to make investment decisions, with a focus on high-growth sectors in traditional Orange territory such as connectivity, cybersecurity, the digital enterprise and financial services, as well as new areas such as e-health. It seems likely that the digital has been dropped from the unit s name as it is no longer deemed necessary in today s increasingly digital environment.