Investor Updates: September 21 2022 - Egypt’s Exits.me raises $1 million pre-seed round

Egypt’s Exits.me raises $1 million pre-seed round

Highlights

• Egypt-based investment marketplace Exits.me, has raised $1 million in a pre-seed round from a group of local investors, a UK-based investment company, Baseeta Investments Holding, and Mawelni Holding for Financial Investments.
• Founded in 2022, Exits.me automates merger and acquisitions (M&A) transactions and investment deals for startups and SMEs through its marketplace.
• PiE earlier acquired the company, an M&A consultancy firm founded recently by Aboulnaga, and currently works to facilitate over 25 deals on its platform, with 30 others in the pipeline totaling $150-200 million.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

As M&A deals heat up in the African tech landscape, Exits’ funding gives it an opportunity to build the “Microacquire” of the African continent. That would make it easier for smaller companies to gain more visibility among investors and eventually list on a marketplace, as well as for buyers to search for potential acquisitions easily online. The Middle East alone had over 3x the number of exits when comparing 2012 vs 2018 and the numbers continue to grow. Despite global market volatility, the region recorded 359 M&A deals worth $42.6 billion in the first half of 2022, a 12% year-on-year (YoY) rise in deal count.

---

SA’s Nedbank takes banking services to the metaverse

Highlights

• South African bank Nedbank has announced its entrance into the metaverse by acquiring a 12×12 village in Ubuntuland, Africarare’s metaverse for an undisclosed sum.
• With this move, the bank establishes itself as the first African financial services organization to enter the metaverse.
• The Nedbank village reportedly has a focus on customer value and services and aims to contain numerous experiences ranging from virtual gaming to a sports lounge.

Source: ITWeb

Our Takeaway

Africarare is Africa’s first metaverse and houses settlers such as MTN, which purchased land in the metaverse in February. It is highly sought-after by companies and individuals who wish to capitalize on the multiple opportunities presented by the metaverse. Meanwhile, Nedbank becomes the latest South African company to make a play in web 3.0 technologies, doing little to clear doubts that linger over the potential of Africans to participate in the “metaverse”. 

---

GIZ, GSMA launch mobile innovation lab in Tunisia

Highlights

• The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) has partnered with GSMA Mobile for Development to create a Mobile Innovation Hub that will foster the development of mobile digital solutions and promote the platform economy across various sectors.
• Together with the Tunisian government and the local digital ecosystem, GIZ and the GSMA plan to collaborate on developing the Platforms for Tomorrow Acceleration Program, which will help innovators build platforms to thrive.
• The program will provide targeted and customized technical assistance to selected innovators to optimize their solutions, increase their ability to scale and improve their socio-economic impact.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

Africa is a huge market for mobile digital services given the relatively high mobile phone penetration. Already, the continent accounts for 70% of the world’s $1 trillion mobile money value after mobile money transactions rose 39% to $701.4 billion in 2021 from $495 billion in 2020. With the majority of activity and transactions in Africa still offline and manual, there remains a massive under-tapped market, and initiatives such as the lab launched by GIZ and GSMA are crucial to helping startups and innovators capture this.