Press Release
Klasha raises $2.4 Million to build technology for cross-border commerce in Africa
Klasha team (Image: Klasha)
Klasha, a San Francisco based cross-border technology company, today announced that it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to build technology infrastructure for cross-border commerce in Africa. The investment round was led by Greycroft with participation from Seedcamp, Berrywood Capital, AVG Basecamp Fund, Practical VC, Plug and Play, First Round VC, Expert Dojo, 2.12 Angels, MiLA Capital and angels, including Joe Cross, Ex-Marketing Head at Wise (formerly TransferWise), Santosh Ankola, Ex-Head of Product at TechCrunch and Michael Pennington, Co-founder of Gumtree.
With this investment, Klasha will expand its technology to help international B2B and B2C businesses such as ASOS, Zara, Amazon or Zoom to receive payments seamlessly online in African currencies from consumers across Africa. Klasha’s core technology allows African consumers to pay international online and offline retailers in African currencies while the retailers receive payouts in their dominant currencies, including USD, GBP, EUR. Klasha is currently available in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya and will invest in driving more revenue, growing its current 10,000 customer base, and expanding into new markets with three more African countries set to go live by Q4 this year.
In the past few months, Klasha has continued to power international businesses with the tools they need to grow and expand into Africa. Within five short months of launching, Klasha has already processed more than 20,000 transactions across Africa with an average 366% MoM growth rate.
Klasha has built plugin integrations for WooCommerce, OpenCart and BigCommerce. Its integration library is rapidly growing to accommodate even more platforms, including Wix, Ecwid, Magneto and Commerce Cloud. And with an official partnership with BigCommerce, the Klasha Checkout will reach thousands of e-commerce stores globally, enabling them to receive payments online from Africa.
Africa presents vast opportunities for scaling quickly in commerce. There are more than 400 million internet users in Africa, and the total value of e-commerce is expected to reach $29 billion by 2022. Still, the ability to pay online with African money methods including cards, M-Pesa, bank transfer and mobile money is challenging for consumers on the ground. Klasha believes that consumers in Africa should have built technology to facilitate the same frictionless access to the goods they want regardless of their geographic location.
- Klasha Checkout: A technology solution that allows international merchants to collect payments from Africa in local currencies. The checkout can be integrated into any e-commerce platform, website or app. Through this checkout, customers in Africa can make payments online using their preferred African payment method (card, bank account, USSD, M-Pesa, Mobile Money) in their local African currency, and the merchant receives the equivalent in their chosen currency. Customers can also enjoy cheap and fast delivery of their goods.
- Klasha Payment Links: A no-code option to accept payments for B2B and B2C merchants or independent sellers that do not have an e-commerce storefront. The Klasha Payment Link provides a flexible and easy way for international businesses to collect payments from customers in Africa without needing a website, app, or any coding skills. With just a few clicks, businesses can create a simple custom checkout page directly from their KlashaDash dashboard and share it with their customers via email, WhatsApp or other social media platforms to receive payments.
- Klasha mobile app: A secure app that allows you to make local and international payments online in your local African currencies without any restrictions. With the Klasha mobile app, you can send and receive money from family and friends in Nigeria, Ghana or Kenya who use the app. No monthly charges. You can also create a virtual card, fund it with NGN, KES or GHC, see all your transactions, including the amount paid, merchant details, card information and much more.
- KlashaWire – A fast and easy way for businesses to pay their suppliers overseas in their preferred African currency, whether Naira, Cedis or other currencies. The suppliers, on the other end, receive the money in the dominant currency of their choice. With this feature, small business owners can make large payments to suppliers overseas with ease while lowering the cost of the transaction directly on the Klasha dashboard. When payments are made, the supplier generally receives it in their dominant currency in two business days.
29-year-old Jess Anuna, Founder and CEO of Klasha, ex-Amazon, Net-a-Porter and Shopify, said: “By 2025, half of the world’s population will live in Africa. At Klasha, we’re building the technology to facilitate frictionless cross-border payments and allow international businesses to scale seamlessly into Africa through our API. Equally, we’re giving consumers in Africa the same access to the global e-commerce economy experienced on other continents. It is imperative that African consumers are able to remain globally competitive, which includes having access to the goods they want without payment or delivery restrictions.”
Alison Lange Engel, Partner at Greycroft, said: ”Klasha’s technology allows for seamless cross-border transactions at a time when Africa is rapidly growing and needs both payment and logistics solutions for online commerce. We’re excited to support Klasha and their mission in simplifying borderless payments for commerce in Africa.”
Oloyede Oladimeji, CTO of Klasha, said: “We have built a secure and reliable commerce solution from scratch using modern technologies. As a business, it is important that we not only build but move fast. Every day, we are scaling our solution to solving a unique problem, connecting Africa to global merchants. Africa is a growing economy with huge potential but low card payment penetration, and we are enabling consumers in Africa to access products irrespective of their payment methods. Our multi-currency technology saves merchants the stress of dealing with all the different currencies available in Africa, allowing them to receive payouts in their dominant currency. What is amazing is not what we have built already but what we are going to build.”
Reshma Sohoni, Founding Partner at Seedcamp, said: ‘’As Africa continues to undergo digitisation, there’s an increasing opportunity for online businesses in Europe and US to garner market share quickly by accepting payments online in African currencies due to the nascent stage of commerce on the continent. Klasha is our first investment in Africa which will allow frictionless scalability for merchants into the continent through their cross-border payment technology, enabling billions of underserved consumers to access their services.’’
Klasha remains committed to simplifying cross-border payments for commerce in Africa and empowering businesses with the tools they need to grow and expand into a market full of energized consumers.
Source: Klasha
Press Release
Shelter Afrique CEO Presents Credentials to the Government of Kenya
Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB) Chief Executive Officer, Thierno Habib Hann, has presented his credentials to Prime Cabinet Secretary of Kenya and Foreign & Diaspora Affairs Minister of Kenya, H.E Dr. Musalia Mudavadi.
In a formal ceremony held at the Prime Cabinet Secretary of Kenya’s office in Nairobi, Mr. Hann conveyed Shelter Afrique Development Bank ‘s commitment to enhancing its collaboration with the Government of Kenya in addressing the pressing challenges of affordable housing and urban development in the country and across Africa.
Mr. Hann highlighted the organization’s commitment to sustaining its impactful efforts in Kenya, particularly in advancing affordable housing programs. Mr. Hann reiterated Shelter Afrique Development Bank ‘s dedication to supporting Kenya’s housing agenda with a particular focus on housing programs that seek to address key thematic areas of climate financing, gender, migrants, refugees, and the diaspora.
“We enjoy a great relationship with the Government of Kenya, being Kenya Shelter Afrique Development Bank ‘s largest shareholder and we are looking forward to scaling up projects that are in line with the visionary economic development agenda – Kenya Vision 2030. We extend our gratitude to the Government of Kenya for their enduring confidence in our institution and for hosting ShafDB’s Headquarters for the last 42 years,” stated Mr. Hann.
He further conveyed Shelter Afrique Development Bank ‘s readiness to collaborate closely with Kenyan authorities in implementing innovative solutions aimed at expediting the provision of quality, affordable housing, and associated infrastructure and urban development across the nation.
Welcoming Mr. Hann and accepting his appointment, Prime Cabinet Secretary Honorable Musalia Mudavadi, commended Shelter Afrique Development Bank for its ongoing transformation and continued commitment to Kenya and further Africa’s development priorities, highlighting the organization’s valuable contributions to the region’s housing sector over the years.
Press Release
AfCFTA Extends Reach To North Africa
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat and N Gage Consulting signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance implementation of the AfCFTA within Africa, with a focus on North Africa and Arabic speaking countries as well as harness the potential of the AfCFTA through targeted outreach towards positive impact in Africa. The MoU was sealed by the AfCFTA Secretary General, H.E. Mr. Wamkele Mene and Mr. Karim Refaat, Chairman of N Gage Consulting and Dr. Sherif Fahmy, CEO.
The was established as an effort to eliminate trade barriers among African countries with the aim of creating a single market size of 1.3 billion people with a combined annual GDP of $3.4 trillion. As the largest free trade area in the world, the AfCFTA is expected to increase intra-African trade and promote regional economic integration of Africa and, as a result, contribute to the sustainable economic and social development of the continent through the creation of employment opportunities and the reduction of poverty.
Pursuant to the MoU, the two parties commit to strengthen cooperation and promote concrete activities in areas of conducting webinars, tailor effective roundtable sessions, public-private dialogues and to develop a series of monthly newsletters to disseminate relevant information through social media platforms with the aim of raising awareness of business and governments on the AfCFTA, its objectives and showcasing AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative and its role in powering trade among members states.
Additionally, the collaboration will facilitate the preparation for the AfCFTA Business Forum and The Intra African Trade Fair (IATF) and the execution of different capacity building programs for the member states in order to leverage the AfCFTA to boost intra-African trade and utilise Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects to support investment in infrastructure.
The MoU is expected to promote the AfCFTA as a trade liberalisation instrument and sustainable development enabler and accelerator as well as enhance intra-African trade as an engine for economic diversification and industrialisation.
As one of the leading companies operating in the area of government relations and public policy in the MENA region, N Gage Consulting is committed to support the AfCFTA and will deploy all the necessary resources to strengthen and expand cooperation with the AfCFTA Secretariat to enhance African trade integration.
In addition to her impressive legal background, Rosemond has cultivated a niche expertise in the tech startup ecosystem. She has consistently provided comprehensive consulting, due diligence, and investor readiness services to numerous companies in the tech sector.
Press Release
Koa Academy Wins MEST Africa Challenge 2023, Secures $50,000 Funding
Koa Academy team
MEST Africa, a leading Pan-African tech entrepreneurship training program, seed fund, and incubator, proudly announces Koa Academy as the grand prize winner of the 2023 MEST Africa Challenge (MAC), securing a $50,000 equity investment after a competitive pitch battle among Africa’s brightest tech innovators.
In a thrilling showcase of ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit, Koa Academy from South Africa stood out at the MEST Africa Challenge finale in Accra, Ghana, surpassing contenders from across the continent. This coveted startup competition, known for identifying and nurturing tech talent, saw Koa Academy clinch the top spot with its groundbreaking solution, poised to transform the Edtech industry.
The competition drew applications from hundreds of early-stage tech startups, rigorously assessed on criteria such as innovation, scalability, and team strength. Finalists from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Kenya competed in the grand finale, demonstrating their unique solutions and business models to a panel of esteemed judges, including investors and industry experts.
Koa Academy, Winner of the 2023 MEST Africa Challenge and a South African innovator in online education, offers dynamic and interactive courses for grades 4-12. With a focus on engagement and accessibility, it champions digital learning, making quality education available to anyone, anywhere, and transforming the educational landscape in South Africa. The startup impressed the judges at the MAC Finale showcasing significant market potential, revenue growth, and social impact.
“Winning the MEST Africa Challenge has been an amazing experience for the Koa Academy team. It highlights the hard work and dedication that everyone has put into growing Koa. This recognition is not just an award; it’s a testament to the passion and perseverance that drives us every day. Amidst the challenges, this journey has brought us closer to others across the continent, forging relationships and connections that fuel our mission even further. We are reminded that we’re not alone in this endeavor and are incredibly grateful for the support and learning opportunities this challenge has presented,” said Lauren Anderson, Co-founder and CEO, Koa Academy, expressing gratitude and optimism for the future of tech startups in Africa.
Ashwin Ravichandran, Portfolio Advisor at MEST Africa congratulated the winner and finalists for their exceptional achievements and resilience. The event also highlighted the support of Absa Bank Ghana for contributing to the challenge’s success. The MEST Africa Challenge continues to be a pivotal platform for emerging tech startups in Africa, offering funding, visibility, and support to innovate and scale. Koa Academy’s victory underscores the vibrant potential within Africa’s tech ecosystem, promising a brighter future for the continent’s digital landscape.