This week: Sky.Backyard faces shut down

Editor’s Word

Week 39, 2022
Learn time: 5 minutes

Multinational oil large Shell buying a clean-energy firm is additional proof that we’re in fascinating instances, given Shell’s historical past with air pollution. Sultan coated that story this week, and we spotlight it right here, alongside different wonderful tales from TechCabal this week.

Completely happy post-Friday.

Kelechi Njoku Senior Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Picks

	Sky.Backyard to close down The long run is brittle for a number of startups because of the funding winter. Three months after Kenyan foodtech Kune shut down, one other Kenyan startup Sky.Backyard, a B2C market, has introduced that it could should tow the identical path quickly. Listen to the CEO.
	Nigerian buyers sue in Kenya Over 2,000 Nigerian buyers have petitioned Kenyan courts to launch funds which have been earlier frozen by the Asset Restoration Company (ARA) in a fraud investigation in opposition to fintech unicorn Flutterwave. Learn more.
	Lagos suspends tech hub audits Nigerians accused the Lagos Security fee of overtaxing the tech sector when it introduced that every one coworking areas and tech hubs could be required to pay an annual sum of ₦150,000 ($347) for upcoming audits. Now the audits have been suspended. More details.
	Uber and Bolt drivers go sluggish in Kenya Uber and Bolt drivers stage go-slow protest in Kenya to strain each ride-hailing corporations to scale back their commissions to 18%. The drivers say that the rising value of gasoline is burning an excessive amount of off their earnings. Learn more.
	Greater borrowing charges loom over Nigeria Nigeria’s apex financial institution has raised rates of interest to a document excessive to stope the document inflation. That is in one of the best curiosity of Nigerians, however issues could worsen earlier than they get higher as industrial banks will even enhance their curiosity on loans they provide enterprise individuals. Read more.

	Daystar Energy sells to shell Oil-producing large Shell has a protracted historical past in Nigeria albeit muddled with civil and environmental scandals. This week it made its first clean-energy acquisition in Nigeria; it acquired Nigeria-based clear power startup Daystar Energy. Learn why Daystar sold to Shell.

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	Jumia companions with Zipline E-commerce large Jumia now has wings. It has partnered with drone supply service Zipline to supply on-demand drone supply providers to its costumers in Africa. The service will first roll out in Ghana and never Nigeria, its largest market. Learn more.
	Safaricom makes overdrafts cheaper Ruto has snagged one more win: cheaper Fuliza loans. Forward of a deliberate presidential overview of Kenya’s credit score scoring system, Safaricom and its companion banks lowered every day costs for loans beneath Sh1000 ($8.29) from Fuliza, a short-term digital mortgage product. Learn more.
	The race for 5G dominance in SA The battle strains for 5G dominance have been drawn in South Africa and most telecoms within the nation know that victory belongs to those that have entry to fibre. How have MTN, Rain, Vodacom, Telecom and others have been working up to now? Find out.
	Paymob companions with Tabby Paymob, an Egyptian cost and buying app, has partnered with Tabby, a Dubai-based buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform to supply interest- and fee-free cost options to over 120,000 retailers in Egypt. . Learn more.

Who introduced the cash this week?

Yellow Card, a crypto trade platform, closed a $40 million collection B spherical led by Polychain Capital.
Vendease, a Nigerian digital procurement platform, secured $30 million in Collection A funding. The spherical was led by Partech Africa and TLcom.
South African id startup, iDENTIFii, received $15 million in development capital. The spherical was led by African funding firm Come up.
Uganda-based fintech, Numida, raised $12.3 million in a pre-Collection A equity-debt funding spherical led by Serena Ventures with participation from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital and Y Combinator.
South African dwelling providers startup, SweepSouth, secured $11 million in a spherical led by Alitheia IDF, a gender-lens non-public fairness fund.
Farmerline, a Ghanaian-based agritech firm raised a $1.5 million extension to its earlier $12.9 million pre-Collection A introduced in April.