Africa Tech News

Genesis, a digital assets financial services firm, may be in hot water as it looks to raise fresh capital for its lending unit or potentially face bankruptcy if it can’t.
A Genesis spokesperson says their goal is to resolve the current situation consensually without the need for any bankruptcy filing. Genesis continues to have constructive conversations with creditors.
Sources shared that Genesis cut its capital raise target by 50% from $1 billion to $500 million, as it may face bankruptcy without the funding.
Genesis was facing a liquidity crisis after FTX collapsed, which created unprecedented market turmoil, resulting in abnormal withdrawal requests which have exceeded our current liquidity.
The firm decided to temporarily suspend redemptions and new loan originations in the lending business.

Electric vehicle startup-gone-SPAC Faraday Future has raised a going concern warning, per regulatory filings.
The company says it has substantial doubt as to whether it would be able to continue operating over the next year, adding that it is uncertain when it will dispatch the first deliveries of its FF 91 luxury EVs.
Faraday has 369 preorders, down from 399 refundable, non-binding, paid deposits it had as of June 30, according to the company.
Faraday cited many conditions that will affect the timing of deliveries, including whether suppliers meet their deliverables, the timing, and success of certification testing and the implementation and effectiveness of the company’s headcount reductions.

Cobee, a platform, and app to make organizing and accessing these a little easier by way of an app, a payment card (physical or virtual), and an integration with payroll, has announced some funding on the heels of seeing strong interest in its services, with revenues growing 3x this year.
The company has raised €40 million in a Series B round of funding co-led by Octopus Ventures and Notion Capital, with participation from previous backers Balderton Capital, Speedinvest, and Dila Capital.
It will use the funds to expand to other Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking markets in Latin America, starting with Mexico, as well as to other countries in Southern Europe.

Paystack, the Nigerian-born fintech company acquired by Stripe, has secured a payment service provider license from the Central Bank of Kenya, enabling it to facilitate payments and optimize merchant experience for Kenyan businesses.
This development follows the company’s expansion into Kenya and its private beta product launch.
Paystack acquired its payment license despite the country’s apex bank showing conspicuous prudence in allocating payment licenses to fintech operating in the country.
Paystack’s new license will allow it to process payments in Kenyan shillings and USD, provide no-code commerce tools, and enable merchants more control of their businesses through the Paystack merchant app.

Pan-African cross-border payment app Chipper Cash is set to acquire Zambian fintech company Zoona Transactions International.
This acquisition will allow Chipper Cash, which has a self-reported user count of 5 million, to add new online services and a new agent network to its offerings. This move is also an expansion strategy by the company into Zambia.
Chipper Cash’s VP of Corporate Development, Laura Kennedy, says Zoona’s acquisition will offer it incredible innovation, a great partner network, complementary products and services, and talented in-country teams.
For Zoona’s co-founder and CEO, Brett Magrath, this acquisition allows the two companies to combine their expertise to connect consumers and businesses across the continent while positioning themselves as the first choice provider of financial services for the people of Africa.

Africa’s e-commerce giant Jumia is ending its free delivery Prime subscription service and cutting staff costs according to its Q3 earnings announcement.
The company’s results showed consistent growth but lapses in some areas compared with Jumia’s previous quarter.
The company reported $50.5 million in revenue for this year’s third quarter, a 6% growth compared to $47.6 million in Q2, and an 18.4% increase compared to $42.7 million in revenue in the same period last year.
Gross merchandise value declined to $240.7 million from $252.7 previous quarter despite being an increase from $238.1 million realized in the previous quarter.

Unicorn Flexport is revolutionizing the world of logistics, serving as a freight forwarder with software that enables customers to manage their shipments. But there are still thousands of smaller freight forwarders, many running on outdated ERP software or spreadsheets.
A startup called GoFreight wants to help them compete by providing the Shopify of freight forwarding, with backend software that makes their operations run more smoothly, and a frontend that lets them set up a storefront and provide quotes in a few minutes.
The Los Angeles and Taipei-based startup has raised $23 million in Series A funding, co-led by Flex Capital and Headline.

Google says it has evidence that a commercial surveillance vendor was exploiting three zero-day security vulnerabilities found in newer Samsung smartphones.
The vulnerabilities, discovered in Samsung’s custom-built software, were used together as part of an exploit chain to target Samsung phones running Android. The chained vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain kernel read and write privileges as the root user, and ultimately expose a device’s data.
Google Project Zero security researcher Maddie Stone says that the exploit chain targets Samsung phones with an Exynos chip running a specific kernel version. Samsung phones are sold with Exynos chips primarily across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which is likely where the targets of the surveillance are located.
Stone says Samsung phones running the affected kernel at the time include the S10, A50, and A51.

Blnk is providing consumers with access to credit at the point of sale. The startup has raised a total of $32 million in a combined pre-seed and seed funding round, which comprises $23.7 million in equity and debt funding as well as $8.3 million in securitized bond issuance.
The $12.5 equity round was led by Abu Dhabi’s Emirates International Investment Company and Egypt-based venture capital firm, Sawari Ventures, with participation from several prominent local and international angel investors.
The debt funding of $11.2 million was secured from several leading local banks and the $8.3 million securitized bond issuance was underwritten by the National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire.

Kenyan-based fulfillment and logistics startup Sendy has announced that it has received undisclosed funding from MOL PLUS, the venture capital arm of Japanese transport company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.
The funding, which appears to be a bail-out fund, is expected to keep things steady at Sendy as the logistics startup figures out its next act.
The funding negotiations with MOL PLUS appear to have coincided with Sendy’s aggressive cost-cutting over the last three months.
CEO and co-founder Mesh Alloys had earlier attributed the layoffs to the current realities impacting tech companies globally.
MOL PLUS joins existing Sendy investors such as Atlantica Ventures and Toyota Tsusho Corporation to help scale fulfillment services in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire.