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If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be running a company that does agriculture insurance, I would not have believed you. Agriculture has not been an area that people have invested in across Africa. Many of my cousins and childhood friends still work on their farms, but they are reluctant to invest, putting in only what they can afford to lose.The reason they don’t invest is simple. The chance of them losing their money due to the vagaries of the weather is huge. Working in insurance got me to understand about probabilities of loss early on — probabilities that cause our continent to be food insecure.

Pula’s mission is to give farmers confidence by providing risk mitigation. Our solutions protect a farmer’s investment by pairing it with insurance. We build business cases to persuade Fortune 500 companies, seed and fertilizer suppliers, lending institutions, and governments in Africa, that embedded insurance will help deliver better results for both businesses and food security.

We empower individuals with access to credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. Carbon is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. We are a global company of over 90 employees with operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya

Carbon is a financial service provided by Carbon Finance & Investments Limited (RC 1044655), licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). We empower individuals with credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities, and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. We are a global company of over 90 employees with a presence in Mauritius, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Kenya.

Judging by the recent set of results from Purple Group, their easy-to-use and cost effective EasyEquities trading platform is well on its way to becoming one of the leading platforms of the investing world. This relationship enables Satrix, the largest equity index tracking provider in South Africa, to employ the same innovative technology driving the EasyEquities platform to offer ETF’s to the nation.

The online equity investment platform has reached a tipping point, with more than 150-thousand active users. Purple Group has reported a strong rise in first-half earnings as its EasyEquities online investment and trading platform reached tipping point. The fintech group owns 70% of EasyEquities and Sanlam Investments holds the remaining 30%.

The next six months will, no doubt, prove to be unpredictable. In many ways perhaps some of the toughest months experienced in the investment world in decades lie ahead with the world economy in unchartered waters," Purple Group said. "But that suits us just fine. Firm in the knowledge that we simply must, every minute of every day, be there for our partners and clients on their financial journey."

EasyEquities grew revenue by 140% to R28.6 million in the six months to end-February as the number of funded retail investment accounts more than doubled to 199,491. The platform generated a R76,000 profit for the period from a R12.4 million loss previously. Platform assets quadrupled to R15.8 billion.

Robos came on the scene about a decade ago, and two early startups were Wealthfront and Betterment. Today, there are dozens of robos in the market, Fisch said. There are pure robo services, as well as those that offer the option of talking to a human advisor, with or without an extra fee. Since they’re automated, robos can more easily avoid conflicts of interest that could beset a human advisor, who might push investments that pay the highest commissions.

Artificial intelligence is changing the world of retirement planning. By using improved datasets and algorithms to efficiently deliver solutions tailored to people’s needs, AI can help them save, invest and retire better. One of the hottest trends to emerge in this area in recent years is the use of robo-advisors. These are software programs that use the data supplied by clients to create and automatically manage their investment portfolios

“JUMO has started to solve the problem of access to good quality financial services for people in emerging economies”, says Andrew Watkins-Bell, CEO of JUMO. “It’s unacceptable for people to have difficulties making transactions, saving or finding capital to finance their company.”

JUMO: Banking services in the palm of your hand

EasyEquities is an innovative investment platform that allows you to own parts of a company (shares) from as little as R5. They make it easy and more affordable to buy shares in local and international stock markets. We've partnered with them to deliver on our purpose of helping you improve your financial life – by providing simple access to easy investing. And if you haven't invested before, don't worry about it! We'll help you learn the ropes with practise money in your demo account so you can get the hang of investing before using your own money.

Founded in 2019 by Uber Egypt’s former General Manager Ahmad Hammouda, Thndr is starting with a Robinhood-like mobile-first equities trading platform that enables people to invest in stocks in The Egyptian Exchange.

Ahmad Hammouda, the co-founder and CEO of Thndr, said, “Our vision is to put wealth in the hands of everyday individuals. With the rise of technology, and the foresight of a very supportive Financial Regulatory Authority, we can make this vision come to life — Egypt is expected to be the 7th largest economy by 2030 and has more than 100 mn people, most of which are young and are looking for a convenient and digital way to invest their money. That’s why we are excited to bring a new breed of young investors to the market.”

"We believe that this investment revival should be led by investments in securities on the JSE." said Almero Oosthuizen, VP of Business Development at EasyEquities, eloborating on what led to the founding of the FinTech startup.

Our Story We help our clients automatically invest into the financial market either daily, weekly or monthly without ever needing to go to a bank What problem are we solving 70% of the Africans have no access to a formal financial institution, 92% have no access to investment accounts How are we impacting the world Our solution helps our clients build a sound financial future by investing from their mobile phone with or without an internet connection

STARTUP WATCH- E-commerce company Capiter plans to invest EGP 500 mn next year to expand its geographical presence and the network of its SME clients, CEO and founding partner Mahmoud Nouh said, according to Al Mal. The Cairo-based company, which was founded in May 2019, operates an app that connects small and medium companies to suppliers.

The fund is backed by some of the largest family offices and business leaders from Egypt and the MENA region​.​The strategy is the first of its kind in Egypt, utilizing local know-how and private capital to support & build solid foundations for its portfolio.FV has Lead and Co-Lead four highly sought after deals during its initial deployment, investing in two Fintech companies, Capiter & Nowpay, one in consumer internet/entertainment, Minly, and one in logistics (operating in stealth).

Financial planning is the backbone for every type of business to operate efficiently with achieve targeted objective. A single mistake in the financial records or planning can drag the growth of an organization to zero. As a solution, Robo-Advisors serve a digital platform with automated functions backed up with algorithm-driven financial planning services. This digital platform allow to automate the procedure with least or can be said no human supervision. A question might be nudging your mind, “How a digital platform can be able to plan financial operations?” It is a worth question that must be answered before using such a high tech platform.

The $6 million investment will help Fawry, a local company, extend its network of payment terminals across Egypt, a country heavily reliant on cumbersome cash transactions. That is expected to help consumers pay bills and make it easier for businesses to receive payments, stoking commerce and economic growth.

The investment is also designed to help restore investor confidence in Egypt and create jobs in its burgeoning high-tech sector.

Bismart is a leading Kenyan insurance aggregator. We leverage on digital platforms and technologies which enables us to connect our clients to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market. Most importantly we provide our clients with education and information; this irrevocably gives power to the client to freely decide on the best premier insurance and /or investment solution to stick with. And all this in front of their computer screen or smartphone.Insurance is just a click away...Be smart, Buy smart.

We leverage on digital platforms and technologies which enables us to connect our clients to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market.

“Common investor wisdom is to stay in your market and dominate. This assumes that you are expanding on your own but we believe that by collaborating and partnering deliberately, Carbon and other tech companies can scale faster and build more enduring platforms,” Chijioke Dozie, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Carbon, said. 

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.Consumer lending platform Carbon, which rebranded in April as parent company OneFi continues to transition into being a full digital banking platform after raising US$5 million in debt funding and acquiring Nigerian payments startup Amplify, has been busy expanding its offering, and has also moved into new markets with a Kenyan launch.Its “Disrupt fund” is the first of its kind by an African fintech startup, and will invest up to US$10,000 per startup for five per cent equity. Portfolio companies will also be given access to Carbon’s API, allowing them to leverage Carbon’s growing customer base and innovative technology platform to get to market faster. Carbon expects the initiative to spark more collaboration and further investment that should drive growth across the ecosystem, and is accepting applications from companies with operations in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Egypt. Startups looking to apply for the fund must have a functioning product, be post-revenue, and be looking to operate in multiple countries. The fund has a wide investment mandate but target sectors include insurance, health and education.“There are many excellent companies across the continent looking for the kind of scale Nigeria offers and we are excited to partner with them to provide the support and financial investment they need. We are equally excited to expand beyond Nigeria and Kenya by working with a new generation of innovators across the continent and sharing our experience to tackle common obstacles to growth.”

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.

A new Kenyan startup called Abacus (www.abacus.co.ke) is a licensed data vendor with the Nairobi Securities Exchange(NSE).Its been in existence since 2015 and just early this year,in partnership with Genghis Capital and Chase bank,they began offering subscribers the ability to deposit,buy,sell and trade unit trusts,bonds and equities on their platform.

A new Kenyan startup called Abacus (www.abacus.co.ke) is a licensed data vendor with the Nairobi Securities Exchange(NSE).Its been in existence since 2015 and just early this year,in partnership with Genghis Capital and Chase bank,they began offering subscribers the ability to deposit,buy,sell and trade unit trusts,bonds and equities on their platform.

All in all,Abacus allows you to easily get started on the road to investing in the NSE,its available on the web through www.abacus.co.ke and the android app is available on the Google play store,A basic subscriber account is easy to set up and allows one to easily get started with practise trading with virtual funds and realtime NSE data on market open so that one can learn.

Helios completed the acquisition of a 76% stake in TPAY, a fast growing direct carrier billing provider in the Middle East and North Africa from A15, a leading tech investment fund based in Egypt. With offices in Cairo and the UAE, TPAY currently operates across 16 countries with almost half of its total transaction volume coming from African markets such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

TPAY provides a much-needed mobile payment solution in markets with low banking penetration and high mobile adoption.

Helios completed the acquisition of a 76% stake in TPAY, a fast growing direct carrier billing provider in the Middle East and North Africa from A15, a leading tech investment fund based in Egypt. With offices in Cairo and the UAE, TPAY currently operates across 16 countries with almost half of its total transaction volume coming from African markets such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

The announcement was made at the 2017 LendIt USA Conference in New York. The three investment transactions include Series C financing round in Trumid, an electronic trading platform for the bond market; Series B financing round in WeConvene, an online corporate access management ERP provider for capital markets; and Seed Round financing round in WorldCover, an innovative peer-to-peer insurance network.

Founded by Peris Bosire and Rita Kimani, FarmDrive delivers productive digital loans and lay away savings products to smallholder farmers in Kenya, helping them grow their incomes and resilience.