Investor Updates: May 19 2022 - Kenya-based Victory Farms raises $5m for expansion.

Kenya-based Victory Farms raises $5m for expansion

Highlights

• Victory Farms, an aquaculture startup and farm for tilapia fish comprising hatcheries, nursery ponds, and deep-water cages, has raised $5 million in new funding.
• The investment was led by Ed Brakeman, a senior managing director at Bain Capital, and Hans den Bieman, founder and ex-CEO of Mowi, one of the largest salmon businesses globally.
• It is the startup’s first institutional investment following seven internal angel rounds from the same set of equity–and debt investors (it raised $40 million in debt last year). This funding will allow the Kenyan-based company to expand its business into Rwanda, DRC, and Tanzania.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

With the huge strides made by startups like Victory Farms, Africa is fast becoming a global leader in the agritech space. Between 2016 and 2019, the industry grew by 44% year-on-year, and the continent has registered the highest number of agritech services in the developing world reaching more than 30 million smallholder farmers as of 2021. The global agritech sector will reach nearly $200 billion by 2025. How much value Africa can tap from the vast and dynamic market will be determined by how well startups and companies capitalize on the challenges in agriculture on the continent. 

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Kenyan retail startup Bamba raises $3.2m seed round

Highlights

• Kenya’s Bamba, a mobile-first enterprise software for micro-merchants in Africa, has secured $3.2 million in seed funding to scale its app and build its team. 
• Founded by Bastian Gotter, Bamba provides a mobile application allowing small businesses to manage their customers easily and stock levels, get paid, payout, and takeout cash advances against their future cash flow.
• The company is currently in stealth mode and will use the new capital to build out its mobile product offer, scale its engineering team and expand its user base across 12 African countries with high mobile money penetration. 

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

More than $600 billion of consumer goods are sold in Africa through informal retail channels every year, supplying the vast majority of the 1.2 billion population. Yet, the industry is faced with several challenges that can be addressed, profitably, with digitization. For Bamba, it is going after Africa’s untapped micro-merchants market riding on the rails of increased mobile adoption on the continent.

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Egypt healthtech startup Doxx launches with $1.5m seed round

Highlights

• Egypt-based healthtech startup Doxx has launched after closing a $1.5 million seed round, led by Openner and Elevate.
• Founded in 2021 by Sherif Baroudy, Doxx aims to digitize the healthcare supply chain by connecting medical professionals and healthcare providers including pharmacies, labs, and insurance companies on one platform. The startup also enables pharmacies to procure and deliver medicine. 
• Doxx has so far onboarded 2600 doctors, 18 polyclinics, 52 pharmacies, 26 medical labs, and 10 scan centers.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway
Startups like Doxx are crucial to the African economy and it’s a positive development to see investors back health-tech players. The region’s healthcare industry has for decades been plagued with several challenges that prevent universal access. Importantly, increasing investor backing for startups shows one of Africa’s most crucial socio-economic problems can be tackled without forgoing returns.