Investor Updates: May 5 2022 - Nigeria’s Norebase gets $1m pre-seed funding

🇳🇬Nigeria’s Norebase gets $1m pre-seed funding

Highlights

• Norebase, an Africa-focused trade technology company, has secured a $1 million pre-seed funding round co-led by Samurai Incubate and Consonance Investment.
• Based in Nigeria, Norebase describes its goal as a platform that lets businesses start, scale, and operate in any African country.
• The raise will help accelerate the company’s plans to build a plug-and-play company incorporation technology, broaden its trademark registration stack, bolster its existing team and develop more solutions.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Africa’s combined GDP, estimated at $3 trillion, is projected to reach $29 trillion by 2050. With investment into the tech startup industry this year passing the $2 billion mark already, Norebase’s incorporation-as-a-service play is well-positioned to support entrepreneurs, founders, and businesses to start and scale across borders seamlessly, potentially reaching the continent’s 1.2 billion people.

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🇿🇦SA logistics startup GoMetro raises $1m seed extension

Highlights

• South African logistics startup GoMetro has secured a $1 million seed extension round to accelerate its growth, bolster its commercial team and rapidly expand into the South African, UK, and American markets.
• GoMetro is a mobility management platform that enables public transport and logistics operators to boost operational efficiency, futureproof their services, and tighten their competitiveness.
• The seed extension was provided by Kalon Venture Partners, Hlayisani Capital, Tritech Global, 4Decades Capital, and E Squared Investments, and will be used for key hires and in building its tech platform, product engineering, and development.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

With Africa urbanizing faster than any other continent, at 4% annually compared to 2% global average, the rapidly growing urban population continues to strain existing infrastructure – including transport. Smart mobility solutions, already popular in major developed cities globally, are key to addressing some of these challenges and gradually, they’re emerging across the continent driven by initiatives from startups like GoMetro.

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🇿🇲Draper Startup House launches in Zambia

Highlights

• Draper Startup House (DSH) has established its first location in Southern Africa in Lusaka, Zambia through a partnership with BongoHive, a technology and innovation hub.
• Founded in Singapore in 2018 by Vikram Bharati as Tribe Theory, a hostel concept for digital nomads, Draper Startup House (DSH) has grown into a global network of spaces connected to services, education, and investment.
• With over 35,000 community members in 60 countries who tap into its education, technology services, investment, and community resources, DSH is a unit of the Draper Venture Network founded by Timothy Cook Draper, a US venture capital investor.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

South Africa has been pretty much the only country known for tech innovation and startup activity within its subregion. However, over the past year, other nations like Namibia and Zambia have been in the venture spotlight. Last August, Zambian fintech, Union54, emerged as the country’s first to be selected for the Y Combinator accelerator and followed that up with a $15 million seed round led by Tiger Global last month. The launch of DSH in the country is a further sign that tech stakeholders are paying attention to Zambia, and it could be southern Africa’s next big ecosystem.