Investors update: African B2B e-commerce Sabi valued at $300m in new $38m round

African B2B e-commerce Sabi valued at $300m in new $38m round

Highlights

• Sabi, a Lagos-based B2B e-commerce startup providing digital commerce infrastructure to Africa’s informal economy, has raised $38 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $300 million.
• Frankfurt-based specialist fintech investor CommerzVentures, Stockholm-based but Africa-focused growth-stage investor Norrsken22, U.S.-based growth-stage funds Fluent Ventures and Proof VC and pan-African early-stage investors CRE Ventures and Jaango are some of the investors in this round.  
• The investment signals revived investor interest in a B2B e-commerce market going through some reckoning, with reports of significant layoffs and down rounds involving some of its key players. 

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Across Africa, merchant acquisition is proving to be the “new” scramble for digital services on the continent. In an estimated $800 billion informal trade economy comprising more than 56 million micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, most merchants operate offline with little or no exposure to the formalized, digital economy. These account for up to 90% of businesses on the continent and like Sabi, many startups in the B2B e-commerce space in Africa, such as Nigeria’s TradeDepot and Egypt’s Capiter, have built digital products to address these bottlenecks in the informal business sector, with sufficient venture capital backing.

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Kenyan agritech startup iProcure expands to Tanzania

Highlights

• Kenya’s iProcure has launched in Tanzania through its partnership with the Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA), 10 months after it raised a $10.2 million Series B funding round to support its expansion into new markets.
• Launched in 2013, iProcure provides a distribution infrastructure, connecting major agricultural input suppliers directly to local agro-dealers, cutting out the multiple levels of middlemen in the traditional agricultural supply chain. 
• This way, the startup provides technology-driven insights on supply levels and prices, ensuring the availability, quality, and delivery of critical agricultural inputs like fertilizers and seeds at a discount from prevailing market prices. 

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

iProcure is one of many new agritech startups that have sprung up across Africa, and are finding business opportunities in addressing the lack of infrastructure and other farming challenges. Africa is fast becoming a global leader in the agritech space, with the continent boasting the highest number of agritech services in the developing world, reaching over 30 million smallholder farmers, as of 2021.  The startup’s expansion is even more relevant considering Tanzania’s agriculture sector contributes nearly one-third of the country’s GDP and employs 75%cof the population.

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Non-bank stocks expected to sustain ghana stock exchange rally

Highlights

• The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is expected to see a continued upward trend, mainly driven by non-bank stocks, per a report by DatabBank.
• The report suggests that investors can expect sustained growth in non-bank stocks due to various factors, including favorable economic conditions, increased investor confidence, and the resilience of non-bank sectors amidst the challenges faced by the banking industry.
• Market analysts believe that non-bank stocks offer significant investment opportunities and can contribute to the overall growth of the Ghanaian stock market.

Source: African Markets

Our Takeaway

Ghana’s benchmark stock index, the GSE-CI, has witnessed a marked recovery since the middle of March this year, rising from 2,391.8 points on March 8, to 2,721.17 points on May 12 – with a market capitalization of GH¢68.1 billion ($6.3 billion). Broadly, investors are tipped to continue to seek solace in the stock market, specifically in telecommunications, oil marketing, and agricultural stocks, as they remain cautious of the debt market and shy away from banking stocks due to the broad downturn caused by the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).