Investor Updates: March 28, 2022 - Egypt’s fantasy football platform Eksab raises $3m

Egypt’s fantasy football platform Eksab raises $3m

Highlights

• Egypt-based daily fantasy football platform, Eksab, has secured a $3 million seed funding round, led by 4DX Ventures with participation from a number of local and international angel investors, bringing the total funding the platform has raised to date to $3.7 million.
• Launched in 2018 by Aly Mahmoud, Eksab allows players to choose free or premium competitions, make predictions and choose line-ups, with winners climbing the leaderboard and winning cash and prizes.
• Eksab will deploy the capital to scale its user base across the MENA region and Africa, invest in product development, talent acquisition for engineering, product, and execute partnerships with several global football clubs.

Source: Techcrunch

Our Takeaway

Eksab is the first and currently only licensed fantasy football platform in Egypt. The company plans to acquire licenses to operate in three additional MENA countries by mid-2022, in a bid to capture the lion’s share of the multi-billion dollar football ecosystem in the region, serving more than 500 million football fans across the Middle East and Africa.

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Morocco’s Al Mada launches $109m pan-African VC fund

Highlights

• Morocco-based Al Mada Holding Group has launched a $109 million pan-African venture capital fund to invest in fast-growing startups.
• The new VC fund aims to develop promising technology-oriented startups in fintech, healthtech, logistics, edtech, and renewable energy. 
• In addition to providing direct funding, the Al Mada venture fund will equally offer startups access to the fund’s network of partners.

Source: Morocco World News

Our Takeaway

In what was a record year for venture funding in Africa, startups on the continent raised more than $4 billion in 2021. This year, African startups secured more than $1 billion in a record seven weeks, prompting predictions startup funding in Africa may reach $7.3 billion at the end of 2022. For Al Mada, it sees an opportunity in the fact that despite this growth, African startups still only draw 1% of funding from global venture capitals indicating further growth prospects.

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Tunisia’s biotech WaterSpirit raises $872,000

Highlights

• Tunisia-based B2B biotech startup WaterSpirit has closed a fundraising round of $872,000 from undisclosed Tunisian investors.
• Founded in 2018 by Mehdi Bhouri, WaterSpirit focuses on extracting bioactive chemicals from microalgae, to be marketed to manufacturers of pharmaceutical and cosmetics products.
• The new investment will help WaterSpirit scale its activities, as well as pursue export opportunities, especially in the North American and European markets.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, innovation and invention in biotechnology have continued to escalate worldwide. Africa has not been left behind with several government-backed biotech hubs and incubators as well as startups springing up across the continent in recent years. If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a sense of awakening regarding the need for Africa to have its own research centers and biotech companies.