Participated · Series A · Aug 2026

Jem is led by founders Simon Ellis and Caroline van der Merwe and has attracted recent investor backing. Public remarks from investor Bevan Ducasse praise the company's culture, customer obsession, creativity and ambition. The company recently closed an $8.4 million Series A round led by Quona Capital. The article does not provide details on Jem's products, services, revenue, users, or location. It also does not report founding year or specific operating metrics. Investor commentary emphasizes confidence in the team's mission and execution.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2026

Shiprazor provides an e-commerce logistics platform that offers merchants a single integration to a network of 20+ courier partners, enabling courier selection, shipment tracking, post-purchase communication and AI-powered workflow optimization. Its tools aim to help merchants reduce delivery costs, improve fulfillment performance and scale shipping operations. The company was founded by CEO Sahil Affriya and is based in Cape Town, South Africa. Shiprazor has raised $2.65M in a Seed round, bringing total funding to $3.3M. Management intends to deploy the new capital to expand operations and accelerate product development. The article does not disclose revenue, user counts, or valuation.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2026

Happy Pay operates an ad-supported, merchant-funded BNPL platform that lets consumers split purchases into interest-free instalments while merchants pay when transactions occur. The company integrates advertising, payments, and financing via a closed-loop AI engine that targets offers based on behavioural signals, transaction data, and affordability insights. Happy Pay has crossed 600,000 registered users and is preparing to scale to millions, investing in risk and fraud infrastructure to support that growth. It positions itself as a commerce layer beyond simple checkout integrations, enabling merchants to drive measurable sales through outcome-based ad spend. The startup was founded in 2021 by Wesley Billett, Patrick Postrehovsky, and Mark Geary. Its stated plans include deepening merchant partnerships and expanding distribution across online and physical retail channels while further developing its AI capabilities.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2025

Founded in 2018, Kuunda offers an embedded digital lending platform that lets banks and consumer platforms extend overdraft and working-capital credit to agents, micro-SMEs, and consumers. Its Lending-as-a-Service engine analyzes billions of data points to deliver tailored, sustainable credit decisions. The solution integrates directly into mobile money, e-commerce, and gig-economy channels, broadening financial access for underserved users. Kuunda has expanded from its initial markets of Tanzania and Pakistan into Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, and Mozambique, and plans further roll-outs across Africa and the MENA region. To date, the platform has powered more than USD 3 billion in loans and serves over 10 million end users. The company will apply new capital to deepen product innovation and accelerate geographic expansion while continuing to scale its LaaS offering.

Led · Seed · Oct 2024

Octavia is a Direct Air Capture (DAC) company that designs and operates machines to extract CO2 from ambient air, liquefy it, and hand it to a storage partner for underground mineralization. Founded in Kenya two years ago, it began field carbon capture in February and currently operates two devices with a combined capacity of 50 tonnes per year. The startup plans to build more machines and expects to reach a capture capacity of 1,500 tonnes per year beginning in 2025 when a storage site run by partner Cella Mineral Storage comes online. Octavia cites Kenya’s Rift Valley basalts and abundant renewable energy (notably geothermal) as competitive advantages for low-carbon, permanent storage. The company has a 60-person team (40 engineers), is an XPRIZE Carbon Removal finalist, and reports 12 customers to date, with the Danish marketplace Klimate among its largest clients. Financially, Octavia closed a $3.9M seed equity round and has secured $1.1M in advance sales of carbon credits to help scale operations.