Africa's newest unicorn, Ethiopia gets mobile wallet & Germany says sorry | The Round-up

It’s the final month of Q2 and the African tech ecosystem keeps buzzing with innovators making the kind of change we want to see. This month we are taking you on another journey across the African tech ecosystem to discuss the most talked about stories from May, featuring companies such as Chipper Cash, MTN, M-Pesa and even the South African government. Here’s the roundup. 

Welcoming the era of African unicorns
It’s been barely two months since we said congratulations to Nigerian company, Flutterwave, for reaching a one billion dollar valuation, and gaining “unicorn” status.

Now, it's the turn of Chipper Cash! Now referred to as Africa’s most valuable company, Chipper Cash, a startup that facilitates cross-border payment across Africa, closed a $100 million Series C round, led by SVB Capital, to introduce more products and grow its team, bringing the company’s total valuation to over one billion dollars.

Nowadays, due to the value that is being placed on African startups, mostly by international VCs investing in the ecosystem, it is taking a lot less time for African startups to reach a one billion dollar valuation. It took fintech provider Interswitch approximately 17 years to reach unicorn status but they have paved the way for companies such as Flutterwave who reached unicorn status in 5 years and now Chipper Cash who have reached unicorn status in just 3 years.

In a few years time, African unicorns will become commonplace and will be less rare, but for now, let’s bask in the glory of fast paced growth by African startups who are constantly changing the status quo.

Here is a round up of other news stories from the African startup scene in May:

• Techpoint Africa released its annual Nigerian Startup Funding Report for Q1 2021, which shows that Nigerian tech startups raised $219 million, almost triple the combined figures of Q1 2018, 2019, and 2020. The amount raised in the last quarter is also higher than the figures for the whole of 2020. The report also showed that fintech startups accounted for more than 90% of the funding.
  
• South Africa’s Carry1st, a mobile games publishing platform, closed a $6 million Series A round, led by investors spanning gaming, media and fintech, such as U.S. VC firm Konvoy Ventures who led the round, Riot Games (developer of League of Legends), Tokyo’s Akatsuki Entertainment Technology Fund (the company behind Dragon Ball Z), Raine Ventures and fintech VC TTV Capital.
  
• Rwanda’s MTN Rwandacell PLC has become the first mobile network operator in Rwanda’s history to list its shares on the Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE). As part of the listing, Crystal Telecom Limited’s shareholders will now hold a direct 20% stake in MTN Rwanda and can trade their MTN Rwanda shares directly on the RSE. These shares were previously held by Crystal Telecom PLC.
  
• An African community of product leaders and enthusiasts released a State Of Product Management In Africa Report based on a survey carried out between February 15 and March 1, 2021. The report documented the state of project management on the continent, showing that the sector was not excluded from gender disparities in Africa’s tech ecosystem, amongst other findings.
  
• PayU, a leading financial services provider in global growth markets, has released a global e-commerce report titled “The Next Frontier”, which covers online consumer spend across 19 emerging markets and reveals that African countries are closer than ever to an e-commerce adoption tipping point. The report revealed that South Africa’s m-commerce is up by 35%, Nigeria is Africa’s biggest e-commerce market, and Kenya is primed for massive growth.
  
• Kenya’s Safaricom Plc is in talks with Amazon.com Inc. about the use of its mobile-money service M-Pesa on the e-commerce giant’s platform, as part of its efforts to expand global reach and bounce back from a first profit decline in a decade.
  
• Cameroon-based company, Maviance, a company providing digital financial services like agency banking and bulk bill payments, has raised $3 million (€2.5 million) in equity financing. The investment is solely from MFS Africa, the cross-border fintech company connecting mobile money providers like MTN to banks like Ecobank across over 34 countries in Africa. MFS Africa’s investment gives it an undisclosed minority stake in Maviance.
  
• Nigeria’s first dedicated blockchain hub, Convexity Blockchain Hub (CBHUB) has launched in its capital city, Abuja. The hub was launched in partnership with the Blockchain Nigeria User Group (BNUG) with the aim to create a hub ecosystem where people connect, innovate, and create solutions within a space dedicated to blockchain technology. The hub will also offer blockchain solutions that have absolutely nothing to do with cryptocurrency.
  
• South Africa has come out on top of the inaugural African Tech Ecosystems of the Future ranking by fDi Intelligence. It bagged first place in key categories such as startup status, business friendliness, and economic potential. For its inaugural African Tech Ecosystems of the Future rankings, fDi has teamed up with research company Briter Bridges to map the continent’s nascent tech ecosystems and explore their potential moving forward. The results provide a first look at the lively tech realities developing around Africa’s biggest cities, where talent is finally able to find growing pools of capital to evolve their ideas into successful business ventures.
  
• Ethiopia has introduced its first mobile money platform, Telebirr. In just under one week after its launch by state-controlled Ethio Telecom, over one million Ethiopians signed up for the country’s first mobile wallet. The wallet is due to be integrated with banks in the coming weeks.
  

What else are we reading:

• Germany acknowledges colonial genocide in Namibia and promises development projects
  
• Mr Eazi plans strategic entry into East African tech industry 
  
• Digital currency study launched by South African Reserve Bank
  

For more news on African tech startups, follow us on Twitter @DiNNAfrica.