Led · Equity · Jan 2024

Lapaire operates a one-stop eyecare model delivering fashionable, high-quality eyewear and accessible eye testing. Founded in 2018 and based in the Ivory Coast, the company runs 58 branches across six African countries (Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Uganda). To date it has tested over 300,000 people and reports 180,000 lives improved through its services. Lapaire plans to expand aggressively, aiming to establish 300 new eye care facilities across Africa and to positively impact one million people by 2026. The startup raised US$3 million in equity to support expansion and operational optimization. Proceeds are earmarked to optimize operations and grow the company’s presence in existing and emerging African markets.

Led · Series B · Aug 2022

iProcure, founded in 2014, is a Kenyan B2B agtech that builds a pan-African distribution infrastructure and provides a mobile-based ERP to connect manufacturers and distributors with local agro-dealers. The platform currently connects 5,000 agro-dealers and aims to double its distribution hubs to 20 to boost last-mile delivery. The company says it has grown 16x over the last four years and doubled revenue every year except 2020 due to COVID. iProcure operates in Kenya and Uganda and plans to enter Tanzania. Product and service plans include introducing higher-quality, cheaper products sourced internationally, extending zero-interest credit to agro-dealers, and launching a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offering to increase retailers' purchasing power. These efforts are intended to expand retailer and farmer reach and stabilize input availability and prices. iProcure is a Kenyan tech startup that provides a plug-and-play last-mile distribution platform for agricultural retailers, with a version catered for mobile phones. The software helps retailers manage orders using inventory status, point-of-sale activities, individual client profiles, geo-located purchasing patterns, real-time agent performance and built-in mobile payments. Those features enable retailers to better predict demand with business intelligence, improve inventory management, and streamline distribution efficiency. To date the company has connected wholesalers and distributors to more than 5,000 small retail outlets across Kenya. The article frames iProcure’s offering as relevant to meeting rising food demand as Africa’s population grows and smallholder production must scale. iProcure recently joined Invested Development’s BSP Fund portfolio of companies using technology to address underserved markets.

Led · Series A · Jan 2022

ANKA, previously Afrikrea, operates an all-in-one e-commerce SaaS launched in 2021 to support sellers and complement its marketplace. The company began as an online marketplace in 2016 and has recorded 250% year-on-year growth since launch. ANKA’s platform has sellers from 47 of 54 African countries, has facilitated over $35 million in transactions across 174 countries, and records over 700,000 visits per month; the majority of customers are in Europe and North America. More than 80% of its sellers are women, who have grown revenue by about 50% on average since joining. The company plans to use new funding to build out mobile infrastructure, expand product development and operations across new verticals, and to boost hiring across product, sales, and finance while recruiting remote developers. The raise brings its total funding to $8.1 million.

Led · Series A · Jan 2022

ANKA is an all-in-one SaaS e-commerce platform that helps African exporters, online merchants and drop shippers consolidate orders, payments and shipping. The company evolved from a marketplace (formerly Afrikrea) and rebranded to a SaaS model in 2021. Its product suite includes ANKA Marketplace (configurable storefront and omnichannel order/inventory management), ANKA Pay (local payment methods) and ANKA Shipping (partnership with DHL for international dispatch). ANKA reports over a million monthly visits, $50 million processed across 175 countries, a turnover increase from €200,000 to €3.6 million, 20,000+ vendors (80% women) and 350,000+ buyers. It transports over 10 tonnes of cargo per month and says its margins and SME community have nearly doubled since the prior capital injection. The company plans to use new funding to strengthen product development, expand services in key markets (Nigeria, Kenya and the U.S.) and hire sales, technical and product talent while pursuing a goal of onboarding 100,000 African sellers by 2030. Formerly Afrikrea, ANKA launched as a SaaS omnichannel platform that lets merchants monitor sales and inventory across marketplaces, social media and websites and offers customizable storefronts, payment links and logistics integrations. The company partners with DHL and Visa and provides multi-currency payments and a buy-now-pay-later option; Afrikrea remains one feature on the ANKA site. ANKA is free to catalogue products but charges €10/month once sellers accept payments or make sales and a €10 upfront fee for shipping or hosting; it reported over 13,000 subscribers, with about 40% not using the marketplace. The platform serves sellers from 47 African countries (more than 80% women) and said sellers grow revenue by 50% on average; it records over 700,000 buyer visits and buyers have transacted over $35 million from 174 countries. The company claims it ships over 10 tons of cargo per month and that 90% of sales come from buyers in France and the U.S. ANKA plans to build a mobile app, continue product development and hire across tech, finance, sales and marketing to expand its ~30-person team across four continents.

Led · Series A · Jul 2021

Zeepay provides payment infrastructure to enable instant settlement of remittances into mobile money wallets on behalf of international money transfer organizations. Founded in 2014 and led by CEO Andrew Takyi-Appiah, the company has a presence in more than 20 countries. Last year Zeepay settled over 10 million remittance transactions worth over $3 billion. Its core products focus on cross-border remittances and mobile financial services across Africa and the Caribbean. The company’s stated vision is to promote financial inclusion and transform cross-border payments in low-income countries. Zeepay plans to expand its mobile money reach into at least 10 additional countries within the next two years, leveraging remittances in partnership with MoneyGram. Zeepay develops digital rails to connect digital assets and facilitate mobile-money and cross-border payments across Africa. The company was founded in 2014 and holds an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license from the Bank of Ghana granted in April 2020. Zeepay operates in more than 20 African nations and partners with regional banks including Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, and Absa. Management says the business intends to boost annual sales from roughly USD 1.5 billion in 2021 to USD 200 billion over the following five years as it expands its service offering and African footprint. The company’s leadership includes founder and managing director Andrew Takyi-Appiah and CFO Godfried Boakye, who stated the increase sits within a sustainable loan-to-value ratio of 9%. Zeepay is positioning the capital to support expansion and to strengthen its role in the African fintech ecosystem. Zeepay is a Ghanaian fintech that facilitates digital remittances from the diaspora to mobile wallets, bank accounts, and Visa cards across 20 African markets. The company is advancing a remittance-to-digital-assets agenda across Africa and the Caribbean and plans strategic acquisitions to expand beyond its current footprint. Management said it recently relocated into a new commercial property in Accra. Since going to market in May 2016 Zeepay had deployed USD450,000 and recorded a cumulative average growth rate of around 146% over the five years preceding these transactions. The recent Series A funding is a mix of equity and balance-sheet capital intended to support its activities and liquidity needs. Zeepay aims to grow its active 30-day business from 13 to 20 or more markets across Africa. Zeepay provides digital rails that link mobile money wallets, cards, ATMs, bank accounts, and digital tokens to international money transfer operators, payments, subscriptions, international airtime, and refugee payments. The company has a footprint in more than 20 African markets and was awarded an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license by the Bank of Ghana in April 2020. Zeepay raised a US$940,000 seed round from GOODsoil VC to support continued scaling. The startup has a United Kingdom launch planned for 2021. Co-founder and managing director Andrew Takyi-Appiah said the team expects GOODsoil's brokerage background and portfolio connections to help attract good foreign-exchange pricing for wholesale clients. The funding is intended to enable further geographic and commercial expansion across its existing corridors.