…And I Oop (Part Deux)
Last week we reported on Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former dictator José Eduardo dos Santos, running into trouble over leaked documents which implicated her and her family in the systematic plundering of Angola’s wealth.
This week we are happy to say Ms dos Santos has been
indicted for mismanagement and embezzlement during her tenure as head of the state-owned oil company Sonangol from June 2016 to November 2017.
Don’t you just love a happy ending? :)
Internet? We No ‘Av Dat
Several subsea cables were damaged this week which led to spotty internet access across much of the continent.
The subsea cable systems which are called WACS and SAT3/WASC lie in the Atlantic Ocean and connect South Africa and many other African countries to Europe. While the cause of the outage is unknown, South Africa’s Vodacom says a ship has been sent to fix the problem.
Hello My Old Friend
The UK re-embraces Africa.
The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised investment, a greening of development aid and visa reform to delegates from 21 African countries, gathered at the UK–Africa Investment summit.
This is part of the push by the UK to pivot to Africa after Brexit in the hopes of finding other avenues of economic growth and development, and to build the new partnerships which was a key promise of the Brexit campaign.
In line with this the CDC, a UK development finance institution, has announced an extra £2bn ($2.6bn) in funding for African companies.
However, with other global actors such as China, Russia and the United States already interacting with various African countries, the UK might find itself at the back of a long line.
African Tech Fundraising is BOOMING
Africa-focused venture capital TLcom Capital has received US$15 million in funding from CDC Group (the development finance institution and impact investor of the United Kingdom) to boost its TIDE Africa Fund. The fund is focused on early-stage and high-growth startups from sub-Saharan Africa. TLcom will invest between US$500k to US$10 million per venture, to enable high-growth companies achieve scale and attract later-stage funding from global VC investors, regional PE firms, and strategic partners.
Flutterwave, the Nigerian fintech company,
has raised a US$35 million Series B round. The round was co-led by Greycroft & eVentures with additional participation from CRE Venture Capital, FIS, VISA, and Green Visor. The new funding will be used to support its expansion across Francophone and North Africa.
Skynamo, a South African cloud-based software company,
has raised $30 million Series A funding from Five Elms Capital. Skynamo is a sales management and customer relationship company.