Author : zebethcontrol

Thunes integrates with Visa Direct’s digital payments network • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Asia, cross-border payments, Fintech, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Startups, thunesNo Comments

Cross-border payments startup Thunes is partnering with Visa, in a move that will add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to Visa Direct’s digital payments network. This enables many more consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where digital wallets are often the default payment method. Based in Singapore and San Francisco, Thunes is backed by investors including Insight Partners, GGV and Checkout.com, and has raised $130 million in funding to date. Customers of its payments infrastructure include Uber Eats, Grab, MoneyGram, Remitly and Western Union, and it currently processes more than 180 million transactions a year across 130 countries. One of Thunes’ focuses is emerging markets where there are a lot of unbanked people. Many use digital wallets as an alternative to traditional financial services, since they can top-up cash without needing a bank account or credit card. CEO Peter De Caluwe told ZebethMedia that Thunes was created to fix gaps in payments market’s slow traditional banking infrastructure. He cited research that shows half of the world’s population will use mobile wallets by 2025, but says Thunes believe adoption will happen faster than that, with its network connected to 2.7 billion mobile wallet users by 2022. “Digital wallets are one of the fastest growing financial instruments for many small businesses and for unbanked individuals in emerging markets,” said De Caluwe. “Three billion people globally are still left out or poorly served by the formal economy. For these unbanked individuals in emerging markets, digital wallets are gaining traction as an empowering first entry point to the financial system.” The partnership means that about 14,900 financial institutions that are Visa clients can integrate send-to-wallet services for customers, retailers and SMEs through Visa Direct. Visa’s network is now connected to Thunes’ B2B platform, which means Visa Direct can reach more than 1.5 billion new endpoints (for a total of 7 billion) and that the 78 digital wallet providers already integrated with Thunes get a new send-to-wallet capability. Some examples of how Thunes’ software and APIs are used include connecting Paypal and Paypal Xoom payouts with top mobile wallets in Asia and Africa, including in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Kenya and facilitating payments for digital remittance companies like Remitly, World Remit and Moneygram. Grab used Thunes’ platform to localize payments, enabling it to accept mobile payment options and give on-demand payouts to drivers, which gave it an edge over Uber.

Deliveroo confirms Dutch exit next month • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Commerce, Deliveroo, economic downturn, on-demand deliveryNo Comments

Deliveroo has confirmed it’s exiting the Netherlands following an announcement this summer that it was consulting on pulling out of the market. In a statement today, the on-demand delivery app said its consultation had concluded that achieving and sustaining a top-tier market position in the market would require “a disproportionate level of investment with highly uncertain long-term potential returns” — with Deliveroo reiterating that the market represented just 1% of its gross transaction value (GTV) in the first half of this year. “The decision to end operations in the Netherlands reflects the company’s disciplined focus on continuing to maximise returns on investment of resources while meeting existing profitability targets against a challenging economic backdrop,” it said, making a reference to the downturn that’s been driving losses for on-demand delivery players. The decision to terminate operations in the Netherlands does not impact previously communicated full year guidance on Group annual GTV growth and gross profit margin, it added. Deliveroo’s final operating day of service in the Netherlands will be November 30. It also said compensation packages were agreed with employees and riders during the consultation. Commenting in a statement, Eric French, its chief business officer for its international unit, added: “We want to thank all the riders and restaurant partners who have worked with Deliveroo in the Netherlands, as well as our customers. The company is proud to have partnered with some of the Netherland’s best restaurants, grocers and riders. We are grateful to our employees for their commitment to the company and all they have done. We also thank the many riders who chose to work with us for their hard work and we are pleased to have agreed appropriate compensation packages for them as well as our employees.” As it exits the Netherlands, Deliveroo’s operational footprint will be trimmed back to ten markets — with service remaining in Australia, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the U.K. Dutch app users in larger cities like Amsterdam have a number of rival options for ordering a hot meal or speedy groceries via their smartphone — from on-demand delivery players like UberEats, Gorillas and Flink — although, with the quick commerce space also weathering tough times, further near-term service flux can’t be ruled out.

UI Interactions & Animations Roundup #26

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in inspiration, motion-design, roundup, UI Interactions and Animations RoundupsTagged animationNo Comments

Get a fresh dose of animation inspiration with this new set of creative Dribbble shots. From our sponsor: Reach inboxes when it matters most with Mailchimp’s data-backed email automations. Sign up for Mailchimp now. by THRC by Ruslan Siiz by Robin Noguier by Ivan Gorbunov by Ali Zafar Iqbal by Barry by Slava Kornilov by Evgeny UPROCK by Zhenya Rynzhuk by Evgeny UPROCK by Vito Burhonski by Vito Burhonski by Evgeny UPROCK by Slava Kornilov by Vitalii Burhonskyi by Slava Kornilov by Anastasiia Malai by Bayu Ananda by Pradeep kumar by Evgeny UPROCK by Cuberto Previous Roundups Smooth Panel Scroll Effects Tagged with: inspiration motion-design roundup

Nigerian retail automation platform Bumpa raises $4M, led by Base10 Partners • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in africa, Base10 Partners, bumpa, Commerce, StartupsNo Comments

Millions of small and medium businesses still operate inefficiently due to dependency on manual processes, which limits their capacity to grow and scale; this is despite contributing to about 48% of Nigeria’s GDP in the last five years, But the tide is turning. Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a wave of upstarts launching solutions geared toward digitizing small business operations. In the latest development, Bumpa, one of them which says it is building the infrastructure to power online commerce and enable African small business owners to start, manage and grow their businesses from their mobile devices, has raised a $4 million seed round. The company, which announced a $200,000 pre-seed last September, said it intends to use the investment to hire talent, build up its processes, structure, and scale into new African markets. Founded by Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele, Bumpa intends to use the investment to hire talent, build up its processes and structure and scale into new African markets. It announced a $200,000 pre-seed last September. The platform’s origin story can be traced to 2018 when founders Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele — while running another startup that involved consulting for small businesses — built websites for small business owners interested in coming online for the first time. Subsequent versions were tailored in Shopify’s image: a basic website builder small businesses could use without much assistance. However, after gaining little traction, it was clear that Bumpa had to evolve to meet the growing demands of businesses on the platform, including recording sales and bookkeeping, inventory tracking, and storing customer details. It also helped that both founders came from families of small business owners, so they had a firsthand view of these problems. And as businesses moved online in droves when COVID hit in 2020, Bumpa returned to the drawing board, revamped its product and launched a new version into the market the following year. This version lets businesses create websites in “60 seconds,” accept payments, manage inventory, handle bookkeeping, fulfil orders and engage customers. “We’re trying to solve the inefficiencies small businesses face as most of them have operated in a black hole for the longest time. They don’t have enough data and insights into what’s happening, what’s being sold and how their products are being sold,” CEO Umechukwu said on a call with ZebethMedia. “While many startups are trying to solve this, we’re doing it differently. We’re evolving, and we consider our features as the foundation of what is possible with Bumpa.” Bumpa 2.0: Integrating an ecosystem of products These days, small businesses in Nigeria are spoilt with options, in addition to Bumpa, for products that can digitize their operations, including bookkeeping, invoicing and inventory management. Some include Pastel, Kippa and OZÉ. In August, Bumpa made a move that conveyed a message: It approached its relationship with small businesses differently as a retail automation company, not an embedded finance platform. “I think the ideology and the product direction between Bumpa and other companies differ. Most of them have fintech elements; we are not trying to be fintech — we’re in the retail automation space,” CEO Umechukwu expressed. “We’re not trying to solve things in fintech that have already been solved. There are new things that have not been tested before, like the Meta integration.” Our big announcement is finally here! Bumpa has now integrated Meta to make selling on Instagram 5x faster! Business owners can now connect their Instagram business account with Bumpa, receive Instagram DMs directly on their Bumpa app & sell products @ Bumpa speed.#BumpaXMeta pic.twitter.com/DMRrW2HEpN — Bumpa (@getBumpa) August 1, 2022 Bumpa’s integration with Meta allows its merchants to connect Instagram and Facebook accounts to their Bumpa app, receive DMs from their customers and respond via the Bumpa app. The integration also lets them share and sell products, share invoices/receipts, record sales, store buyers’ information and request payments on the Bumpa app while it reflects on their customers’ Instagram DMs. All these transactions occur without the merchants leaving Bumpa and the buyer leaving Instagram. Several tech onlookers have lauded the Meta integration, which, according to Umechukwu, will carry Bumpa to its next phase: bringing various digital solutions essential to the daily operations of small businesses and integrating them under the social commerce and retail automation platform. “There’s so much fragmentation in the space. A business owner probably uses up to 10 solutions, including social media, payments, invoicing, logistics and marketplace apps. But none of these solutions communicate with one another,” he said. “We want to be that connecting platform on the continent. The idea now is to connect all of these solutions and channels that small businesses use together with a click of a button and basically facilitate the transfer of information for efficiency.” That said, Bumpa would not be heading into this Herculean task blindly. It will prioritize based on orders and activities completed on the platform. For instance, what drove the Meta integration was that 40% of all the orders on Bumpa come from Instagram and WhatsApp. And in a subtle bid to bring conversational commerce to over 50,000 small businesses on its platform, the next couple of integrations will include WhatsApp, Messenger and Google My Business. The play is similar to what Charles has in Europe. These integrations are not free, though. Bumpa has latched them to a subscription plan to complement its first revenue stream: commissions on online transactions. Umechukwu said subscriptions have doubled Bumpa’s revenues from Q2 to Q3 this year. Generally, Bumpa has completed over 200,000 orders since its inception and recorded a GMV of more than $20 million. Base10 Partners, the world’s largest Black-led fund, is the lead investor in Bumpa’s seed round; it’s the firm’s second investment in Africa after Okra, a Nigerian API fintech. Other participating investors include Plug & Play Ventures, SHL Capital, emerging markets-focused fund Magic Fund, Jedar Capital, DFS Labs, FirstCheck Africa Angel Program, E62 Ventures, Club14 and Fast Forward Ventures. Fast Forward Ventures’ managing partner Opeyemi Awoyemi said Bumpa

Pinterest partners with record labels to bring popular music to its TikTok rival, ‘Idea Pins’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Apps, Music, Pinterest, record label, TikTok, VideoNo Comments

Pinterest’s TikTok competitor is gaining new music. The company announced today its video-focused “Idea Pins” feature will now include the ability to add popular tracks from top artists, thanks to new licensing deals with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin and BMG. This will expand upon the music already provided through Pinterest’s royalty-free music library from 7Digital, the company noted. With the launch, Pinterest says there will be thousands of new tracks available from artists like Dan + Shay, Bruno Mars, Michael Bublé, Twenty One Pilots, Zach Bryan, Paramore, and others. To make it easier to browse and access this larger music catalog, the Pinterest mobile app will also introduce a new music experience on iOS and Android. Here, creators will be able to search for music by artist, track name or keyword in order to find the right song to accompany their Idea Pin. To use the feature, creators will first open Idea Pins, then click on the music icon to be taken to the screen where they can search and add their desired track. They’ll then record their Idea Pin and publish it. The update could help to make Pinterest’s Idea Pins a more viable competitor to TikTok as well as other social apps that have ventured into the short-form video format, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts — all of which already include the ability to add popular songs from major labels. Launched last year, Idea Pins are Pinterest’s own unique take on the now ubiquitous TikTok short video format, which has shown up in numerous apps including Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, and most recently, Twitter. Instead of copying TikTok directly, as some others have done, the 60-second Idea Pins allow creators to tell their stories using a combination of video, images, music, and other editing tools — but in a way where the Pins themselves can be tapped through, which is similar to Stories. The Idea Pins feed, meanwhile, is scrolled through vertically, like TikTok. This format can be useful for the types of videos Pinterest creators would want to make as it allows them to add elements to their Pins that a video-only feature wouldn’t as easily permit — like a list of ingredients and steps for a recipe, for example, or the names of products used in a makeup tutorial. Pinterest users can like, share and comment on the Idea Pins. But they can also save them to different boards for later reference — an organizational feature TikTok today lacks. This summer, Pinterest opened up the Idea Pins format to advertisers, too, with the launch of “Idea Ads.” “Music plays a vital role in elevating storytelling and empowering storytellers, creators and Pinners who inspire the world every day on Pinterest,” said Malik Ducard, Pinterest’s Chief Content Officer, in a statement about the launch. “We are thrilled to partner with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin and BMG to bring the latest music tracks to our platform and elevate the content and inspiration created on Pinterest.”

Holidu pockets $102M to keep growing its vacation rentals business in Europe • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in 83North, Bookiply, holidu, Startups, Vacation RentalsNo Comments

Munich-based software and services vacation rental startup, Holidu, has topped up its coffers with an oversubscribed €104 million (~$102M) Series E funding round of equity and debt, led by existing investor 83North, after seeing its year-over-year revenue grew 100% in 2021. The round saw a mix of other existing and new investors chipping in, including in the latter camp Northzone, HV Capital, Vintage Investment Partners and Commonfund Capital, and with (in the former) Prime Ventures, EQT Ventures, coparion, Senovo, Lios Ventures and Possible Ventures. The €100M raise also includes a chunk of venture debt — €25M — that’s been put up by Claret Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. So the equity component of the Series E comprises €75M. While travel startups were hit hard by coronavirus lockdowns in the early wave of the pandemic, vacation rentals picked up fairly quickly as lockdowns eased later on in 2020 and 2021, and as platforms retooled to cater to reconfigured demand from travellers opting for more domestic breaks over going further afield, for example. Holiday homes were also better positioned than other travel options like hotels (or, er, cruise ships) to offer attractive private spaces where people could feel safer about taking a break even as vaccine rollouts were still ramping up. And Holidu and its investors are banking on that increased demand sticking around. The German startup tells ZebethMedia travel and booking patterns have now largely returned to resembling the pre-pandemic picture, from 2019, with a rise in international (vs domestic) travel bookings. It also says holidaymakers are feeling more comfortable about planning ahead again and back to booking around a month in advance vs the shorter timeframes people switched to during the height of COVID-19 uncertainty. Post-pandemic (or, well, post-the-peak-of-the-crisis), demand for travel has rebounded fiercely as plenty of people hankered to finally get away again — which is reflected in the larger growth Holidu booked in 2021 (100%) vs 2020 (when it was up around 50% y-o-y). It says its vacation rentals metasearch engine, which compares listings across over 1,500 websites, reached more than 110 million visitors in the last 12 months. And — with fresh funding in its back pocket — Holidu is gearing up to further press on the growth gas by expanding its rollout of local office locations to support its market outreach efforts. A second strand of its business is aimed at increasing supply via a software and services play, called Bookiply, targeting vacation rental hosts — helping them get their properties online by streamlining administration and supporting them to grow bookings. The startup says the unit grew 13x between 2019 and 2022. In 2021 specifically, Bookiply’s revenue growth was 4.4x — and in the first nine months of 2022 its revenues have grown 3.3x. While the number of managed Bookiply homes has stacked up from 5,000 three years ago to nearly 20,000 now — but it sees plenty of room to keep building that out. “As a group we are growing at a high double digit rate,” CEO and co-founder, Johannes Siebers, told ZebethMedia. “We see that our company delivers true value to hosts and guests, which is reflected in our very strong host retention and guest satisfaction. We will now scale our region-by-region approach into Europe’s large and attractive hosting market. This financing round is a great vote of confidence in the current environment. We are on the path to build a big company,” he added in a statement. Holidu’s growth has been fuelled by a number of acquisitions in key markets — with Holidu buying a veteran holiday home portal Spain-Holiday.com last year; and picking up a couple of vacation rental services firms focused on German speaking markets (Lohospo and my.IRS) earlier this year to boost its services offering in the DACH markets (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). “With the Series E raise, we are open to further acquisitions on the supply side,” Siebers also told us. While the startup reported reaching profitability with its search business back in 2020 he says it remains focused on scaling — saying its too early to consider an IPO at this stage (NB: Holidu was founded back in 2014). “With close to 20,000 Bookiply properties we consider it still ‘early days’ for us,” he said. “The global market is very large and we are fully focused on expanding our property base in new and existing areas and on working on our products for hosts and guests.” Discussing trends it’s seen accelerating over the last three years, he flags the adoption of vacation rentals as a big one — pointing to a McKinsey study that found that 43% of travellers during 2021 booked a vacation rental for the first time, and reported that three-quarters of respondents planned to continue to stay in vacation rentals for at least half their trips in the future. Flexible work patterns established as a result of the pandemic are also resulting in travel seasons broadening, per Siebers, who says they’ve seen stronger booking demand for “shoulder seasons” outside of core school holidays. And a final (contradictory) trend he flags is demand for “sustainable” vacation rental homes, with accommodations that are marked by Holidu with an “Eco” label achieving a 12% higher click through rate and a 29% higher conversion rate than properties which do not possess such a label — suggesting travellers are looking for ways to offset any environmental guilt they may feel about jetting off by taking steps to reduce the overall emissions load of their holiday. One growth trend Siebers does not mention is rising rents for long term tenants looking for accommodation they can actually live in. Housing costs are being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis that’s driving inflation and interest rates, atop a long term undersupply of affordable housing stock across many regions, but vacation rentals complicate the picture by further reducing accommodation units available for long term tenants to rent. This trend is fuelling a fresh wave of calls for regulators to clamp down on

MaxAB, an Egyptian B2B e-commerce platform for food and grocery supplies, nabs $40M • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in africa, b2b e-commerce retail, Commerce, e-commerce, Fintech, MaxAB, StartupsNo Comments

Last year, MaxAB, the food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform serving a network of traditional retailers across Egypt and Morocco, raised its $55 million Series A in two tranches; the latter accompanied its acquisition of the Morocco-based and YC-backed WaysToCap. The moves signaled MaxAB’s ambition to dominate Egypt’s and North Africa’s B2B retail and e-commerce market, which includes Cartona and the troubled Capiter, other players that have raised significant capital to compete within the past year. To continue growth due to the rising demand for food and groceries and fuel its expansion across the MENAP region, MaxAB has raised more money, this time a pre-Series A to the tune of $40 million. Although smaller than last year’s prized round, CEO Belal El-Megharbel told ZebethMedia that the pre-Series A was neither a down round nor a flat round in terms of valuation. He also noted that the company raised new capital, not because it needed the money but because “there are many opportunities that we believe we can tap into quicker the more capitalized we are.” The asset-heavy MaxAB has raised over $100 million in total. Small traditional retailers serve as the backbone of the FMCG industry across Africa. For most B2B e-commerce platforms across the continent, groceries are one of the many consumer goods they help retailers source from suppliers. For MaxAB, that’s its sweet spot. And since its launch in 2018, MaxAB has connected suppliers with over 150,000 unique traditional retailers in this food and grocery supply chain across Egypt and Casablanca, Morocco, delivering over 2.5 million orders within this timeframe. MaxAB’s perspective of going deep rather than wide with its product offerings also extends to how it regards geographical expansion. After scaling its B2B grocery delivery across Egypt for over three years, it intends to utilize its network and relationships with local and multinational suppliers and advance full distribution into Morocco, which now accounts for 10% of MaxAB’s business, and entry into Saudi Arabia by the end of 2023. The company estimates that more than 750,000 mom-and-pop businesses require its services in Egypt and Morocco alone. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is appealing due to the government’s drive to digitize the informal sector and the FMCG’s willingness to explore new business models. “We’re trying to offer more services to the grocery stores since they are the foundation of the economy we operate in before jumping into these other supply chains. Think about Amazon; they kept selling books for eight years before adding another category. And that’s the school of thought we like to go with,” said the CEO who founded MaxAB with Mohamed Ben Halim. “In Egypt, we focused on launching the grocery supply chain and we’ll use the learnings that have come from that to launch across multiple markets. It’s easier to launch the grocery supply chain in various markets than launch, for example, electronics in our core market because it’s just a completely different business model that we have to relearn from scratch.” Another growth stream for MaxAB is the fintech business launched last year, which leverages its large pool of merchants and operational capacity to carry out cash collections. And its entry approach to offering financial services differs from the competition; it launched a bill aggregation product — which has grown 5x in transaction value since the start of the year — rather than a BNPL product that many B2B e-commerce platforms introduce to merchants first. It didn’t take long for MaxAB to delve into the popular B2B fintech category, though; last month, the platform launched a working capital product to its merchant base. However, like Wasoko, another B2B e-commerce platform based in sub-Saharan Africa, MaxAB opted not to raise debt financing to scale that part of its operations. According to El-Megharbel, who was an ex-general manager at Careem, MaxAB currently gets a lot of supplier credit that helps it finance the working capital without raising debt, at least for now. “And because the buy now, pay later product is still early, we can still do some financing with equity without having to pay for debt that we won’t be utilizing in the short term,” the CEO added. MaxAB’s equity round includes an impressive list of new investors: DisruptAD, ADQ’s venture capital platform; the British International Investment (BII); and the Menlo Park–headquartered private equity firm Silver Lake — its first check of any form in an African startup. Silver Lake invested through its Long-Term Capital strategy with Mubadala Investment Company. “We’re always proud of our ability to attract top-tier investors to the region. Historically, since our seed round, we’ve always had at least one VC that has invested in Egypt, North Africa or Africa for the first time,” said El-Megharbel on the investment, referencing firms such as 4DX Ventures and Flourish Ventures. They participated in this round alongside other existing investors, Beco Capital and Africa Platform Capital.

Eswatini’s central bank mulls issuance of a digital currency • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in CBDCs, Crypto, eswatiniNo Comments

The kingdom of Eswatini is considering the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), joining the growing list of African countries exploring the viability of an e-currency. The Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) said it has appointed German technology group Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) to research and explore the possibilities of a digital Lilangeni (the country’s currency) to complement banknotes. The CBDC project will involve a design concept, and other considerations such as governance, accessibility, interoperability, security and programmability of the potential digital currency. The consultants are expected to help the CBE make an informed decision on whether or not to adopt the e-currency, and the best ways to roll it out. The project follows the completion of the first phase of a 2020 CBDC Diagnostic study by the CBE, which “presented the strongest and direct opportunity for the adoption of a digital currency in Eswatini.” “The Central Bank of Eswatini is delighted to have engaged G+D as a technical consultant to walk with us in our journey as we explore and formulate the foundational policy considerations and use cases of a localized CBDC. We are confident that G+D’s technological expertise and their strong regional presence in our continent will allow us to realize all possible advantages of a Digital Lilangeni and ensure we’re fully equipped to issue a CBDC in the future,” said CBE Governor, Dr. Phil Mnisi. G+D recently helped Ghana to pilot a retail CBDC, making it the second country after Nigeria to run such a trial. Nigeria’s eNaira was introduced in October last year and had by August 2022 been used to carry out transactions worth ₦4 billion ($9.2 million). Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are some of the other African countries eyeing digital currencies to enhance their access to financial services, cost reductions, interoperability and enhanced cross-border payments. The CBDCs, unlike cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, are developed by central banks and are pegged on countries’ fiat currencies.

Egypt’s Nexta to launch “next-gen banking” app with fresh $5M • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Fintech, StartupsNo Comments

Nexta, an Egyptian startup that plans to launch its banking app in the coming months, has secured a $5 million investment from eFinance Group, a state-owned provider of digital payments solutions. This news follows the $2 million pre-seed round Nexta announced this March, which Egyptian early-stage VC Disruptech led. Last year, Nexta obtained a provisional license from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and will look to fulfil further requirements and meet certain obligations before obtaining the CBE’s final approval for the agent banking license it needs to launch its services in the country. The Nexta app will have a partner bank to handle settlements and act as an intermediary between itself and the CBE–however, it’ll power its cards and tech. Founded by Ahmed Hisham in 2021, Nexta wants to disrupt the Egyptian fintech scene with its “next-generation banking” app and card. According to the company, the Nexta card will aggregate users’ existing payment cards, allowing more effortless money transfer, and tracking spending, among other features. “We’re trying to build next-generation banking and provide a seamless user experience to the consumer. We want to make easy and instant onboarding, card aggregation, linking all of your cards and several methods of cash-in features,” the co-founder and CEO told ZebethMedia in an interview, adding that the company plans to make revenue from interchange fees. “That’s the first thing we are going in with the soft launch, and budgeting and tracking spending. And then we’ll add more features every month or quarter more features to solve the pinpoints of Egyptians.” Egypt is among the highest consumer spending markets across Africa. It is also one of the region’s most cash-reliant markets, meaning there’s an immense opportunity for fintechs to bring consumers spending online by launching card services. Egyptians looking for fresh alternatives that do not include telco-powered mobile wallets and digital channels from legacy banks can turn to Nexta and Telda, the Sequoia-backed fintech that announced a $20 million seed round last week. Unlike Telda, which allowed signups from its yet-to-be-launched apps (it didn’t bode well with its over 30,000 users after waiting almost a year to use the app), Nexta has limited its waitlist to signups from its website, engaging them through content marketing in preparation for its launch. Hisham declined to reveal how many subscribers are on the company’s waitlist. Like Sabbah, in an interview with ZebethMedia last week, Hisham agrees that both consumer-facing fintech apps ultimately compete with cash. “I believe that the competition is very healthy and thanks to Telda for the awareness they made to consumers and taking the first step. The Egyptian market needs not only Telda and Nexta but four or five other players like us,” the CEO added. In a statement, Ibrahim Sarhan, eFinance’s chairman and CEO, said the investment in Nexta is in line with Egypt’s digital transformation plan and vision for 2030, including the Group’s plan to maximize its assets and investments by investing in the fintech space. “Nexta is among the promising companies financed by the Group within several targeted investments,” Sahar said. “It’s worth noting that the Group took part in establishing Nclude—an investment fund—to invest in emerging fintech companies, thus improving the current and future direction of fintech in Egypt.” Hisham, who describes this investment as a strategic partnership rather than a funding round, said Nexta is glad to have e-finance on board as the demand for financial services in Egypt increases. “We believe there is a huge opportunity for us to offer a differentiated and outstanding experience to different users in such a promising market,” he said. Proceeds from the investment will help Nexta prepare for its launch, hire talents and invest in its technology.

Makersite lands $18M to help companies manage product supply chains • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Climate, environment, funding, Makersite, Planet A Ventures, Robotics & AI, startup, Startups, supply chain, sustainabilityNo Comments

In 2018, Neil D’Souza, a software engineer by trade and previously the VP of product development at Thinkstep, came to the realization that his ten-plus-year effort to solve enterprise product challenges in the areas of sustainability, compliance and risk were having little impact. The way he saw it, they took too long, which minimized their influence on product design choices. “For example, analyzing a car’s life cycle assessment can easily take an automotive company an entire year,” D’Souza told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “Speed matters, otherwise the analysis just becomes a meaningless report.” That frustration was the genesis of his startup, Makersite, which aims to produce near-instant impact assessments in the areas of sustainability, compliance and risk to inform corporate-level decisions. Makersite, D’Souza says, is an attempt to bridge the gap between experts who know what “good” looks like from an environmental, cost, compliance or risk perspective and decision makers with control over the product supply chain. With over 30 customers including Microsoft, Cummins and Vestas and a balance sheet showing profitable operations over the last few years, Makersite is beginning to attract investor attention, this week securing $18 million in a Series A round with participation from Planet A Ventures. D’Souza says the tranche — Makersite’s first besides “a few convertible notes”; the company was bootstrapped until now — will be put toward work with integrators and resellers and expanding the size of Makersite’s team. “There are many companies out there that specialize in solving cost, compliance, risk or sustainability challenges. The problem is they each sit in siloes and the data they use is specialized to the people who work in those fields,” D’Souza said. “That’s what makes our solution different. We’re unique in the space as we’re the first to solve the challenge of bringing multi-criteria decision analysis to non-experts.” Using AI, Makersite maps a company’s product data against a material and supply chain database, generating automated reports. The idea is to help companies meet their sustainability goals while minimizing costs and keeping compliance at the forefront. The aforementioned database — which D’Souza says is among the largest of its kind — allows Makersite to identify contextual relationships to build a model of products and their supply chains automatically. The models cover not just what a product is made out of, but how every component or ingredient is manufactured — all the way from the mining resources to the factory floor. “[Makersite] enables a customer to drop in a bill of material for, say, a wind turbine, tell the AI that it’s a wind turbine, answer a few questions (e.g., about power output), and the system will automatically build a ‘cradle-to-grave’ model of that turbine that’s localized to where it’s made and where it’ll be erected,” D’Souza explained. “That allows you to optimize designs of specific elements of the turbine — like the tower and nacelle — to locally available resources and infrastructure, such as recycling facilities, and understand trade-offs across the lifecycle and criteria, like cost, risks and regulations.” As Makersite grows its headcount from around 40 employees to over 100 over the next 12 months, D’Souza says that the focus will be on building out the company’s sales and marketing teams to grow business particularly in the U.S. and Europe. On the integration side, Makersite’s investing capital in connectors to software like Autodesk to deliver cost and environmental insights within computer-assisted design platforms. “There is a paradigm shift towards sustainable products which are driven by regulation, competition, customer demand and investments,” D’Souza said. “For that, Makersite enables procurement and product design professionals to make day-to-day decisions without the need for compliance, sustainability, cost or risk experts.”