Do the maths; bridging the gender-gap in the tech ecosystem steadily.
This is a little long, but I promise that it’s worth it.
The African tech ecosystem 🤝 winning!
The tech space in Africa is well and booming. Whether it is fin-tech, health-tech, ed-tech or food-tech, Nigerian startups take the lead and it is amazing to see.
But we’re all about female-founded startups specifically.
In the first quarter of 2022, female-founded startups recorded a slump in capital investment, which was 2% with the funds they had raised and the late-market activity was to blame for this decline. Let’s not forget the gender gap that is also alive and thriving in the venture capital industry. 🤦🏾♀️ The venture capital associate bias against female founders in the industry can also explain why women-founded startups are not getting the funding they need. There is no denying the systemic misogyny and active bias against women when it comes to raising funds for female-founded startups.
Honestly, we have had our fingers crossed in hope since the last quarter report of funds raised in the African tech ecosystem. We are excited to hear and read groundbreaking news about women startup founders in Africa raising funds before the second quarter. We have Gander, Babymigo, Foondamate, Healthtracka, and a host of others that have closed pre-seed and seed rounds and raised funds in this quarter.
Recently, Nigerian digital health platform, Healthtracka raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed funding. This seed round, which was led by investors, Hustle Fund and Ingressive Capital, also featured the participation of angel investors, Alumni Angels Alliance and Flying Doctors.
The health-tech startup offers a web solution that allows their users -individuals or companies- to book a wide-range of tests from the comfort of their homes, have their samples picked up for testing by a professional, and receive the results of their tests via email within 1- 3 days.
In 2021, Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson and Victor Amusan started Healthtracka because they understood the importance of patients getting a medical diagnosis on time and the continuous decline of Africa’s healthcare system was the inspiration they needed to begin. The startup intends to direct the new funding towards making healthcare accessible and affordable. Currently operating out of Nigeria, they intend to expand operations to more states in Nigeria and other African countries like Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana.
Our favorite part: Some of the investors that led this funding round- the venture investors, Ingressive Capital and Hustle Fund, and angel investors, Alumni Angel Alliance and Flying Doctors are women investors. The venture capital industry is heavily dominated by men and it is exciting to see more and more female venture capitalists invest in female-founded startups.
In this article, “11 rising African female founders you should know in 2022”, Koromone Koroye, Hannatu Asheloge, and Ngozi Chukwu spotlighted 11 African female founders who are doing the damn thing - making boss moves, raising funds, and closing seed rounds. Back to back.
We have women founders from across Africa on this list. Meet the amazing women:
Sethebe Manake from Botswana, a real-estate expert turned tech entrepreneur and the founder of GoSmartValue;
Jihan Abass from Kenya, founder of Lami, “democratising access to insurance using technology”;
Neema Iyer from Uganda, founder of Pollicy, “a feminist civic technology collective that focuses on using data and technology to create social change”;
Tao Boyle from South Africa, co-founder of FoondaMate, an ed-tech startup enabling access to necessary learning resources for both educators and students online;
Thato Schermer and Dr Nonhlanhla from South Africa, founders of Zoie Health Technologies, a digital health platform with the goal of making quality women’s healthcare accessible and affordable for more women in Africa;
Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson from Nigeria, co-founder/CEO of Healthtracka, “a health tech startup that is decentralizing access to medical diagnostics in Africa, through at-home testing”;
Honey Ogundeyi from Nigeria, founder and CEO at Edukoya, “an ed-tech company on a mission to redefine learning for the next generation of Africans”;
From South Africa, Tebogo Mokwena and founder of Akiba Digital, “an alternative credit scoring infrastructure to enable small businesses and underbanked consumers to have better access to financing”;
Oluwatosin Olaseinde from Nigeria, founder of MoneyAfrica and Ladda, is committed to teaching people how to spend their money and build wealth in the long run.
From Nigeria, Tomilola Majekodunmi is the co-founder and CEO of Bankly, a fintech enabling people to make their payments, save, withdraw, and transfer money to other people, particularly in locations where it is difficult to access physical banks.
We love to see it!!! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
In case you missed it:
Nigeria's tech startup in charge of enabling seamless wallet transfers between businesses, Thepeer, has raised a $2.1 million seed round led by the Raba Partnership. 🎉🎉
Investors that participated in this seed round are BYLD Ventures, RaliCap, Timon Capital, Sunu, Uncovered Fund and Musha Ventures. The seed round also involves the investment of other African fintech startups like Chipper Cash and Stitch. ThePeer is looking to solve the problems of seamless transfers from digital wallets across different apps and merchants, where users can use their digital store of value anywhere. With this new funding, the startup can expand to other African countries like South Africa, Kenya and Egypt.Last night, we had a fantastic conversation on Twitter Spaces about “Managing Corporate Burnout.” We were joined by Amaka Amaku, Community Manager at Fuzu Nigeria and Ifeoma Nnewuihe, Marketing Manager at Tunu App.
The discussion covered how to identify and manage burnout, ideas on how workplaces can help their employees prevent and recover from burnout, the effects of burnout on the employee as a person and their job, and the importance of rest. It was an amazing conversation! If you missed it, you can listen to the recording here!If you have any topics you’d like us to discuss, do share with us via the comments!❤️✨
Opportunities:
Growth Lead needed at Sendcash. (Bonus: Get $500 if you recommend someone and they get hired. 🤑
Lazerpay is hiring for some positions.
Korapay is hiring for multiple roles.
Jobs at Google.
Seamfix is hiring for some roles.
Senior Designer needed at Microsoft.
Dribble is hiring for some positions.
Few.io is hiring.
Have a fantastic weekend everyone!! 👋🏾