Inspiring Sustainable Business in Africa
AFRICA – Satgana, a climate tech VC firm has announced the first closing of its fund, with a EUR30 million (US$29 million) target size, and plans investments in Africa and Europe. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Satgana is a climate tech VC fund, with the ambition to invest in startups providing technological solutions to the climate emergency. Focused on climate technologies, Satgana…
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AFRICA – Flourish Ventures, a venture capital firm located in the United States, has created Madica, a pan-African investment initiative that intends to provide cash, technological assistance, and coaching to underrepresented entrepreneurs throughout the continent. The sector-agnostic initiative focuses on pre-seed stage technology firms, which is where most ideas fail. The initiative has set aside US$6 million for investment in…
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AFRICA – Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the infrastructure solutions provider in Africa, has closed a US$389 million dual currency Samurai term loan facility, split into US$382 million and JPY ¥1 billion (US$6.80m). The transaction marks AFC’s second foray into the Japanese capital markets, following an inaugural Samurai loan facility in 2019, when the Corporation raised US$233 million and JPY1 billion.…
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AFRICA – Vodacom Business Africa has announced plans to launch its software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) solution to clients in all 47 operating countries across its African footprint after a successful trial in South Africa. SD-WAN is emerging as the go-to solution in business, delivering unmatched performance and cost benefits, including increased agility and quality of service, better reliability and…
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AFRICA – Empower New Energy, a Norwegian solar development and investment company, has signed an agreement to raise US$74 million from a consortium led by Climate Fund Managers to develop solar projects in the Africa Commercial and industrial (C&I) sector. The partnership will develop, finance, own and operate an initial 150MW of solar projects over the next three years. Norfund…
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AFRICA – FairMoney, a credit-led mobile banking platform for emerging markets in Africa and Asia, has partnered with Oradian, a cloud-based core banking system, to power its next stage of growth and product innovation. Oradian services over 10 million banking customers, working with more than 50 tech lenders, banks and financing companies in 13 countries across Africa and Asia. Their…
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AFRICA – African Women Impact Fund (AWIF) Initiatives has been launched with a commitment of US$60 million. These funds will provide capital to existing women owners and women fund managers across different asset classes and African regions. The AWIF is an Initiative of the Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) together with its partners: UN Women, the Office of the Special…
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AFRICA – Maris, an investment holding company with more than US$100m under management across nine sub-Saharan African countries, has received a US$12m financing from France’s development finance institution, Proparco. The climate-aligned investment targets renewable energy, agriculture, forestry and business services and will help Maris build its diverse portfolio of businesses across Africa. It will support a range of Maris operating…
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AFRICA – Barclays, a multinational universal bank, is expanding private-banking services in Africa, looking to target the continent’s US$2 trillion net worth market. The British lender has hired nine bankers from Credit Suisse based in mainly Dubai, London and Zurich after agreeing a deal to handle clients referred by the Swiss rival, Barclays Private Bank CEO Jean-Christophe Gerard said. “Barclays…
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AFRICA – The pan African banking group, Ecobank, has launched RapidCollect™ to link financial transactions seamlessly across the continent through a single bank account. With this one account, business customers can receive funds instantly from their clients in their home country and across Ecobank’s pan-African network; Ecobank business customers can now make instant automated reconciliation leveraging Ecobank’s trusted technology. RapidCollect™…
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