Investor Updates: April 11 2022 - Egyptian edtech Sprints raises $1.2m seed round

Egyptian edtech Sprints raises $1.2m seed round

Highlights

• Egypt-based edtech Sprints has raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by the Alexandria Angels Network as well as members of MED Angels and AUC Angels, Cubit Ventures, Challenge Fund, EdVentures, Falak Startups, and Cairo Angels.
• Founded in 2019, Sprints provides users aged between 18 and 35 with a customized learning journey to advance their careers in software in the Middle East and Africa.
• The startup claims to have delivered 20,000 learning experiences, resulting in more than 80% employment rates. Over the next 3 years, it plans to upskill 1 million youth.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

In Africa, the dearth of talent for digital roles has resulted in a war that sees big companies able to offer fat paychecks to poach prized human assets from smaller counterparts. The shortage of tech talent is not a new problem and may not be resolved anytime soon with the demand for software engineers expected to grow as the technology industry grows. Efforts are needed to plug this gap, and players like Sprints are pivotal to expanding the continent’s tech talent pool.

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IFC pledges $15m investment in Egypt’s Algebra Fund

Highlights

• International Finance Cooperation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has pledged a $15 million investment in Algebra Ventures’ $90 million second fund.
• IFC’s investment in Algebra Fund II will help support the growth of roughly 20 technology startups, primarily in Egypt and more broadly in Africa.
• The latest Fund will have a special focus on women-led businesses and those serving rural communities.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

Tech startups stand to gain significantly from increasing amounts of venture capital available in Egypt, which has grown more than 10-fold since 2016. For the IFC, the investment is part of its strategy to support Africa’s booming startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. In 2016, IFC invested $10 million to co-anchor Algebra’s inaugural $54 million Fund and earlier this year, directly invested $5 million in Brimore and $20 million in the Ezdehar Fund to help smaller businesses access finance.

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SA startup Locstat raises investment from Grindstone Ventures

Highlights

• Cape Town-based advanced analytics company, Locstat, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Grindstone Ventures.
• Founded in 2016, Locstat enables customers to unlock previously unseen insights with their graph-based AI solution analysing the relationship between data points and beyond, which enriches the data set used for analytics to inform better decision making.
• The technology assists with functions such as fraud detection; customer journey mapping, including customer 360°; customer segmentation & recommender systems; rules engine, and geospatial analytics, all in real-time.

Source: Venture Burn

Our Takeaway

The opportunity for big data solutions is immense in Africa and one of the key application areas is in providing business insight. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and machine learning can sort through huge data sets and return commercially useful insights for businesses small and large. With more players tapping this opportunity on the continent, the Middle East and Africa’s big data analytics market is forecast to reach a revenue of $68 billion by 2025.