The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Jan 2024

Cleva builds a banking platform that lets African individuals and businesses open U.S. dollar accounts to receive international payments. The company launched in Nigeria and requires a Bank Verification Number (BVN) and government ID for onboarding. Cleva currently generates revenue from currency swaps/exchanges and charges a 0.9% fee on deposits into USD accounts, capped at $20, and says it has seen month-on-month revenue growth of 100%. In the four months since launch it has enabled “thousands” of Nigerians to open U.S.-based accounts and is processing over $1 million in monthly payments. The founding team — Tolu Alabi and Philip Abel — bring product and engineering experience from Stripe, AWS, Amazon and Twilio, and the startup is participating in Y Combinator’s winter 2024 batch. Planned product roadmap items include USD cards, savings in U.S. assets, invoicing tools and global USD send capabilities to target Africans and the diaspora.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2023

Jumba operates a web-based marketplace and local sales teams that help retailers and real estate developers source construction materials and handle logistics and invoicing. The startup negotiates discounted prices with manufacturers, runs in-house logistics to reduce costs, and offers short-term financing through bank partners with plans to provide longer-term credit for developers. Launched less than a year before this article, Jumba had reached three-times quarterly growth by the end of last year and covers 60% of Kenya’s 47 counties. Its customers access products via the platform while sales associates support sourcing in different counties, especially beyond Nairobi where manufacturing is centralized. The company aims to verticalize construction supply in Kenya, scale within the country to address demand, and eventually explore expansion after deeper market penetration. Jumba’s mission includes helping bridge Kenya’s housing deficit by improving distribution, access, and cash flow in the construction sector. Jumba is a B2B construction-technology marketplace that lets hardware store operators order and restock construction materials online, negotiates prices with manufacturers, and allows resellers to pay on delivery. Launched in April, the startup aims to be the primary source of construction materials in Kenya and to expand beyond major cities as it grows. The company is expanding product assortments according to regional demand and is onboarding manufacturers and hardware stores outside Nairobi to grow its supplier and reseller pools. Jumba is considering a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) product for top-performing resellers, to be built on order history, while already offering payment-on-delivery. The founding team includes CEO Kagure Wamunyu and CTO Miano Njoka; Wamunyu is a civil engineer and real-estate entrepreneur with prior experience helping Uber roll out in Kenya and participating in Kobo360’s expansion. The startup hired Peace Osangir as CFO to lead finance and risk, and has raised funding to fine-tune its technology and accelerate city-level expansion.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2022

Uncover is a data-driven skincare brand for women, established in 2021 in Kenya, that develops scientifically backed products tested and approved by women of color. The company has built an educational tech platform that enables community engagement, relatable product discovery, and educational content, using thousands of data points to personalize recommendations. In the past 24 months Uncover has grown revenue tenfold and established a digital community of over 200,000 women across Kenya, Nigeria, and the diaspora. The startup recently expanded into Uganda and Ghana and is seeing global demand from African diaspora populations. It plans to use new funding to further develop its platform, introduce new products, enter additional markets, and continue leveraging data for personalization. Leadership frames Uncover as a movement to prioritize women of colour and aims to become the leading skincare brand for skin rich in melanin. Uncover is a Nairobi-headquartered, data-driven, digital-first women's brand focused on skincare and women’s health and wellbeing in Africa. The company blends Korean skincare technology with African ingredients to develop its products. It was launched out of the global VC accelerator Antler by founders Sneha Mehta, Jade Oyateru, and Catherine Lee. Since founding, Uncover reports a 20x increase in monthly revenue and a community of almost 60,000 women. The startup plans to use recent funding to launch more products, expand into additional African markets, and improve its technology and data capabilities. Management is preparing to enter the Nigerian market in January 2023 and is working on a third country entry.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2022

Bumpa offers mobile-first digital tools for micro-retailers to manage sales, track inventory, accept payments, and operate their businesses at the point of sale. The company targets micro-merchants facing operational constraints such as fragmented logistics and informal workflows, positioning its product to add structure to existing informal commercial behaviors. Bumpa is described as operating in Nigeria and sits at the point-of-sale layer relative to other commerce platforms. Financially, Bumpa has raised $4.2 million across two funding rounds, including a $4 million seed round in October 2022 led by Base10 Partners. The recent undisclosed investment from Jobtech Alliance was made after the alliance's landscape scan of digital services for MSMEs across Sub-Saharan Africa. The announcement did not provide revenue, user metrics, or specific plans for the new capital.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

FoondaMate provides a WhatsApp- and Facebook-based learning chatbot that gives students immediate answers, access to revision papers, and guidance on responding to questions. The product targets high-school students in emerging markets where WhatsApp is widely used and is often cheaper or free to access. Educators can use the platform to set and post homework and share learning materials with students. Since launch it has been used by more than 400,000 students in over 10 languages across more than 30 countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia. The team vets the bot’s information sources and monitors results to keep children safe on the platform. FoondaMate is working on localizing learning material to accommodate learners in more countries and aims to grow its platform to more than 50 million users. The recent funding is intended to fuel rapid global takeoff and faster adoption of the service.