The Cameroonian platform launched three years ago has attracted investments from across the globe. In 2022, it was the Central African startup to attract the second-highest volume of funding. 

Blockchain-backed accelerator Adaverse announced Monday a strategic investment in Ejara, the Cameroonian investment platform that improves financial inclusion through blockchain technology. 

The investment, whose amount was not disclosed, will support Ejara's drive to empower itself and expand into new markets in Francophone Africa.

“Ejara meets a pressing need across the Francophone region, and we are excited about the business model, which we believe can be replicated across the African continent. They have shown that they understand the people and have built a bridge between crypto and traditional finance, leveraging continuity rather than disruption,”  said Vincent Li, founding partner at Adaverse. 

Since its launch in 2020, Ejara has completed several funding rounds. The last before this financing was in November 2022, when it secured $8 million from several investors. 

To date, Ejara has served more than 33,000 people from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and the Francophone African diaspora in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The fintech startup has also launched cross-border money transfers and user-to-user payments for Africans in the diaspora.

With this new funding, it wants to conquer Francophone African countries, democratizing access to crypto-currency investments by offering the average resident the opportunity to invest as little as CFAF1,000 (~$2) and earn interest daily.  

Samira Njoya

African start-ups play a vital role in economic growth and development. They create jobs, solve problems, and positively impact societies.  Funding them is therefore more important than ever.

Last Tuesday, Flat6Labs, MENA’s leading venture capital, announced the launch of the Africa Seed Fund (ASF), a new $95 million seed fund aimed at supporting the growth and development of early-stage tech start-ups in Africa.

The venture capital firm informs that ASF will focus on three main investment territories, namely North Africa, West Africa, and East Africa. It will invest in more than 160 early-stage African tech startups over the next five years with check sizes ranging from $150,000 to $500,000.

It will provide beneficiaries with seed funding, regional business support, access to a regional network of experienced mentors, and regulatory and logistical support to set up and grow their businesses. Two cohorts will be run every year, each with an average of 10 to 15 start-ups. The first investments in the selected start-ups are expected before the end of 2023.

Flat6Labs  “ will also be providing seed tickets to seasoned founders independently of the program,” the release announcing the ASF explains. According to the release, the large influx of ASF capital is likely to create more than 14,000 jobs, support more than 1,200 founders, 20% of whom are women, and generate more than $700 million in revenue.

“Africa is one of the most exciting regions to invest in tech and innovation, with huge untapped potential and unique business opportunities. We will leverage our experience and knowledge to guide the startup founders to create truly scalable, investment-ready, Africa-based companies,” said Ramez El-Serafy, General Partner for ASF.

The African tech ecosystem has grown significantly in recent years.  According to Partech's Africa Venture Capital Report 2022, the ecosystem attracted $6.5 billion of investments in 2022, up by 8% from the $6 billion attracted in 2021.

Samira Njoya

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the African countries with the largest rural-urban connectivity gap. In that context, the post-Covid-19 growth in demand for broadband connectivity coupled with the country’s large population is attracting local and foreign investments in the digital sector.   

In the coming months, more than 2.5 million people living in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will benefit from a faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet connection. A financing agreement to this effect was signed on Saturday, March 4, between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCS).

Under the agreement, BCS will receive $10 million to deploy 1,200 km of fiber optic cable out of the 20,000 km that it plans to install in Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa over the next three years.

The investment will help connect areas with poor or no access to broadband internet.  It will create jobs and connect 319 schools and 70 hospitals and health centers. According to Yonas Maru (photo, left), founder and CEO of BCS Group, it  "will go a long way to ensure implementation of the MOU between the Government of DRC and BCS to connect over 1,900 schools, 1,640 public hospitals and government institutions along the BCS backbone and metro fiber infrastructure."

“The Digital is such a powerful driver of equity, inclusion, and growth, that the EU has made it a pillar of our Global Gateway strategy. Expansion of the fiber-optic infrastructure will enable local communities, schools, and hospitals to benefit from mobile broadband, which ultimately means new opportunities for learning, business, jobs, and healthcare,” said Thomas Östros, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank.

The funding was officially announced last November at the AfricaCom 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa. It is the EIB’s first quasi-equity investment and its second cooperation with BCS. In 2018, the institution provided an $18 million long-term loan for BCS.

Samira Njoya