Good morning! 
Uganda’s startup funding surged from US$42 million in 2019 to a record US$70 million in 2022, and has accrued a total of US$181 million over the past five years. How are Ugandan startups seizing funding opportunities?
Don’t miss our conversation today in partnership with Innovation Village where we get to explore the trends shaping Uganda’s digital economy and how to capitalise on the opportunities within the ecosystem.
Fintech
Leatherback CEO steps down
When a board member or a VC representative takes over the helm of a startup it spells two things. One, a change in vision. Two, financial struggles or poor performance
Yesterday, TechCabal reported the step down of Ibrahim Ibitade, the CEO and co-founder of cross-border payments startup Leatherback from his helm. Ibitade who had been at the company for about five years will now be replaced by Toni Campbell, a managing partner at Kinfolk Venture Capital.
While the company has not shared a reason for his resignation—we’d have answers on our website tomorrow—Adedayo Amzat, Group Managing Director and CEO of Zedcrest Group, Leatherback’s lead investor, will join the company as a non-executive director.
Ibitade’s resignation comes one year after he was declared wanted by the EFCC. Ibitade stated that the issue had been resolved following his cooperation.
“With this experienced leadership team, Leatherback is well-positioned to continue its journey as a top player in global financial services, making cross-border payments borderless and more accessible for all,” Leatherback wrote in a statement.
According to a source within the company, Ibrahim’s departure was influenced by a desire to pursue other interests, coupled with some friction among board members regarding the company’s new vision.
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Startups
Traction lays off employees after Omniretail acquisition
When mergers and acquisitions happen between companies with similar offerings, employees in overlapping positions often face job cuts.
On Monday, OmniRetail, a Nigerian-based B2B e-commerce startup recognised as the Financial Times’ fastest-growing African company, acquired Traction Apps, a payment provider and inventory management solution for small businesses in Nigeria
One week before the acquisition was announced, Traction employees were told of an imminent layoff.
While the acquisition meant that the newly integrated entity could process over ₦1.8 trillion annually and facilitate loans worth ₦200 billion per year, some junior level and senior level traction employees bore the brunt. According to this report, most of the senior team members who played a key role in the growth of Traction will be retained.
Mayowa Alli and Dolapo Adejuyigbe, former co-founders of Traction, will join OmniRetail as Director of Technology for Payments and Director of Operations for Payments, respectively.
Traction will provide severance packages to affected employees in accordance with Nigerian labour laws. Traction will also offer affected employees career counselling and job placement services.
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Logistics
Sendstack ditches last-mile logistics
It is Day 1 at Sendstack, a two-year-old logistics startup founded by Nigerians Ifeoma Nwobu and Emeka Mba-Kalu.
The company recently shut down DLVR, its flagship last-mile delivery platform that had reportedly garnered 20,000 users, generated revenue of over $250,000, and was profitable.
The now-discontinued last-mile delivery app has been replaced with an entirely new product, CTRL, a software for corporates to manage their in-house or third-party logistics teams. It enables them to assign, route, track, validate, and process payments of deliveries from one dashboard. Now the company has to start from scratch to acquire customers for a new product.
The co-founders say that running DLVR, the last-mile delivery app, was a way to gain hands-on experience with the challenges of the logistics business that they will use to manage their logistics.
TNonetheless, it was a risky experiment for a startup that has only raised $300,000 since it was founded, Even more daunting is the nature of the target market of its new product—corporates where talks about installing new technology can take as long as six months to be concluded due to bureaucracy.
However, it could turn out to be a more rewarding bet for the startup. The B2B logistics market is pretty competitive. A platform like CTRL can level the playing field, reducing the barrier for entry to new players who do not have to code logistics management software from scratch enabling existing players to streamline their operations and save overhead cost.
If Sendstack moves quickly, it has a chance to gain the first-mover advantage. Although startups like Leta are offering similar services across Africa, this technology is not yet widespread in SendStack’s home country Nigeria. The pure software model is also easier to scale so expansion can be comparatively easier than its now-discontinued last-mile delivery model.
Introducing Pay with Pocket on Paystack Checkout
Paystack merchants in Nigeria can now accept payments from PocketApp’s 2 million+ customers. Learn more →
Funding
Funding tracker
This week, Aya Data, a Ghana-based AI consultancy startup, raised $900,000 in a seed round led by 54Collective. The funding is a mix of debt and equity. (October 18)
Here are the other deals for the week:
- Earthbond, a Lagos-based climate tech startup that provides affordable and reliable solar energy to Nigerian SMEs, closed an undisclosed amount from Madica, a Pan-African Investor (October 22)
- A Rwandan e-mobility provider, IZI, secured a $222,000 grant from Rwanda Green Fund. IZI aims to provide affordable electrification of transport in Africa’s growing cities (October 22)
- BasiGo, a Kenya-based e-mobility startup, has raised $24 million in Series A equity funding and an additional $17.5 million in debt funding. The round was led by Africa50, a pan-African infrastructure investor, the British International Investment (BII), and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) (October 23)
- South African e-commerce logistics startup, Pargo, received $4 million in funding to support its expansion into Egypt. This funding round was led by 3Capital Ventures, Endeavor, SAAD Investment Holdings and UW Ventures. (October 24)
- Agenz, a Moroccan prop-tech startup, secured an undisclosed investment from Renew Capital. (October 24)
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. Before you go, our Future of Commerce: Outlook for 2025 Report is out. Click this link to download it.
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$65,563 |
+ 2.28% |
+ 9.02% |
| Ether |
$2,613 |
+ 2.88% |
+ 8.13% |
 Sui |
$2.22 |
– 0.69% |
+ 106.53% |
| Solana |
$156 |
+ 2.30% |
+ 13.83% |
* Data as of 06:00 AM WAT, October 15, 2024.
Jobs
- Big Cabal Media – Sales Operations Lead, Deputy Editor (Zikoko) – Lagos, Nigeria (Hybrid)
- Paystack – Finance and Strategy Specialist – Lagos, Nigeria
- Pandora – Content Manager, Creative Designer, Social Media Strategist – Lagos, Nigeria (Remote)
- Earnipay – Digital Marketing Specialist – Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Mono – Technical Product Specialist, Senior Sales Associate – Lagos, Nigeria
- When – Sales and Marketing Operations Specialist – EMEA, Remote
- Zipline – Product Marketing Manager, Africa – Lagos, Nigeria
- Spacefinish – Associate Designer – Lagos, Nigeria
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Written by: Ngozi Chukwu & Faith Omoniyi
Edited by: Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega
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I am the CEO of 9JAGISTLAND.My name is Adedeji Timothy and my co-owner is Oyekola Damilare.This blog is born out of our passion to educating to people in all aspect of internet life.We are enthusiastic about writing posts and articles online.
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