Investors update: June 19, 2023 - PayGo solar startup Yellow raises $14m to scale in Africa

PayGo solar startup Yellow raises $14m to scale in Africa

Highlights

• Yellow, an African asset financier for solar energy and digital devices, has raised $14 million in a series B funding round led by Convergence Partners.
• The round also saw participation from the Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund, managed by Triple Jump, and follow-on investment from Platform Investment Partners.
• The new round brings the total equity funding raised by Yellow to $45 million. With it, the startup plans to deepen its reach in its current markets Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Madagascar, and launch digital and financial products in the near term.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Yellow is among the asset financiers that have attracted VC funding this year indicating a sustained appetite for deals in startups making solar energy accessible, following last year’s trend that saw cleantech emerge as the second most-funded sector after fintech. Cleantechs attracted $863M in equity or 18% of the total funding raised by African startups, according to Partech Africa’s 2022 report. Overall, in the last 10 years, startups in Africa’s off-grid solar sector have attracted over $2.3 billion in funding, according to the biennial Gogla-World Bank report released in October last year.

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Seedstars, F. Botnar launch new $20m fund to back African startups

Highlights

• Seedstars Capital and Swiss philanthropic foundation Fondation Botnar have launched Seedstars Youth Wellbeing Ventures, a $20 million fund for African startups improving the well-being of young people in low-and-middle-income countries.
• The fund will back pre-seed to Series A startups including those that advance health services, environmental sustainability and ecological resilience, local food security, water and sanitation, waste management, affordable housing, access to employment, and safe and sustainable transportation in Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, and Egypt.
• The mandate will provide initial capital of $250,000 and follow-on investments of up to $750,000. It plans to invest in at least seven startups annually over the next five years.

Source: Ventureburn

Our Takeaway

Seedstars Youth Wellbeing Ventures adds to the growing list of funds under the Seedstars Group, an accelerator, and VC that is active globally in more than 30 emerging markets. The initiative comes a few months after Seedstars announced the launch of its second seed stage fund targeting 100 pre-seed and seed stage tech startup companies in emerging companies across regions, including Africa, and for which it raised $20 million from notable investors including the IFC, Visa Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation.

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Kenya signs major export trade deal with the European Union

Highlights

• Kenya has signed an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union that will guarantee duty-free access for its farm produce into its biggest export market.
• European goods entering Kenya will see tariffs reduced over a 25-year period under the agreement.
• The deal took seven months to negotiate, making it one of the fastest the EU has ever struck, as it seeks deeper economic ties with Africa in the face of competition from China.

Source: Reuters

Our Takeaway

Kenya, Africa’s seventh-largest economy, is a major exporter of tea, coffee, flowers, fruits, and vegetables. The EU is its biggest export market with 21% of the country’s total exports to the world, according to a 2021 European Commission document. Also, more than 70% of its flower production heads to the European bloc. It sold €1.3 billion of goods to the EU in 2022 and imported products worth €2 billion, with two-way trade growing by about a quarter since 2019.