Investor Updates: Egypt fintech Telda raises $20m seed funding from GFC, Sequoia & Block

Egypt consumer fintech Telda raises $20m seed from GFC, Sequoia & Block

Highlights

• Egypt-based fintech Telda, has raised $20 million in seed funding, led by Global Founders Capital with participation from Sequoia Capital and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc. This comes after a $5 million pre-seed investment.
• Founded in 2021 by Ahmed Sabbah and Youssef Sholqamy, Telda is a P2P payment app that serves unbanked users, who can send, spend and save money with no need for a bank account. 
• Earlier this year, Telda obtained the final approval from The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to start operating its card. It plans to use the funds to expand into new markets and build its product offering.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Riding the wave of the growing influence of online banking, Africa-focused neobanks have been attracting a significant share of fintech investment. In Egypt specifically, digital banks have enormous potential as 2 of every 3 individuals are partly or totally excluded from formal financial services but 50% of its 100 million people actively use smartphones. Also, the North African country boasts a young and tech-savvy population with 61% below 30. Startups like Telda have thus moved to capture this opportunity with neo banking platforms, contributing to the booming fintech sector in Egypt.

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Lifestores Healthcare secures $3m to expand its pharma marketplace

Highlights

• Nigerian health tech startup, Lifestores Healthcare has announced that it has raised $3 million in a pre-Series A funding round. 
• The latest round was led by Health54, the healthcare-focused corporate venture capital arm of CFAO Group, with participation from Aruwa Capital Management and other existing investors.
• With the new funding, the startup hopes to improve its software capabilities and expand into other Nigerian markets. In 2020, the startup had a similar plan when it raised $1 million in a seed round led by Flying Doctors Nigeria.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

While the African pharmaceutical market has grown tremendously and is expected to grow at a 10% CAGR to $100 billion by 2023, it is plagued by highly fragmented and undercapitalized supply chains rife with counterfeit medications, which kill thousands of patients each year. In Nigeria alone, about 20-40% of medications distributed and consumed are counterfeit. This is one of many issues Lifestore Healthcare is attempting to address in the Nigerian ecosystem, especially through its OGA pharmacy services.

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FlapKap closes $3.6m seed to tap MENA’s $21bn e-commerce market

Highlights

• Egypt-based e-commerce financing platform FlapKap has closed a $3.6 million seed round from Bolt by QED, Nclude, Outliers, and A15.
• Founded in 2022 by Ahmad Coucha, Khaled Nassef, Sherif Bichara and Adel Hodroj, FlapKap is a B2B revenue-based financing company that aims to revolutionise e-commerce growth by assisting online stores to maximise their growth potential by using AI-based insights and financial data analytics to assess the business and provide inventory funding.
• With the new funding, FlapKap plans to increase its capacity in the Mena region, as well as solidify its presence in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

The growing post-pandemic trend in online shopping presents a great opportunity for FlapKap to expand its solution to solve the growth-destructive challenges of emerging online stores in the region. Available research suggests that the e-commerce markets in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt account for a combined $21.4 billion and is projected to grow by more than 50% to $33.3 billion in 2025.