Zedny - Afrikan Heroes

Africa’s Cross Border Fintech App Raise $13.8m Series A funding…

June 18, 2020

Mohamed Youssef ElBaz Founder and CEO of_Zedny

As Egypt’s Zedny raised $1.2 million while South Africa’s Planet42, raised $2.4-million respectively

Things seem to be looking up for some African startups even in the midst of the global pandemic. This buttresses an earlier point made by African Heroes early this month that inspite of the Covid-19 pandemic, investor’s seem to have a huge appetite for African markets and startups. Chipper Cash, Africa’s fastest growing fintech app which observers say has disrupted the traditional payment services by offering zero-fee, peer-to-peer payment services across seven African countries has just raised $13.8 million Series A funding from investors. This funding according to the company sources will help actualize its plans to expand its workforce across different geographies.

The round which was co-led by Deciens Capital and Raptor Group had other participating investors including 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures. Chipper Cash, a cross-border app with services in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana and over 1.5 million users and records transaction volume of over $100 million a month has been the cynosure of investor’s eyes. And with this latest funding round, Chipper Cash has now raised $22 million in two years. Founded in 2018, Chipper Cash was started by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled.

In a similar development, Egypt’s edtech startup, Zedny has raised $1.2 million pre-seed funding to roll out a new online learning platform. The platform has over 200 courses and 400 animated video summaries top global business books. According to Disrupt Africa, the startup provides year-long online learning and also acts as an external employee performance evaluator via its AI integrations.

Planet42 founders, Marten Orgna and Eerik Oja

Not left out of the pie, Planet42, a South Africa-based startup has raised €2.2-million ($2.4-million) seed round. The round was led by Change Ventures, an Estonian VC company, with participation from top Estonian tech entrepreneurs including Martin Villig, co-founder of Bolt, Pipedrive’s Ragnar Sass, MeetFrank’s Marko Virkebau, and Katana MRP’s Kristjan Vilosius. Founded by two Estonians, Marten Orgna and Eerik Oja, Planet42 is a vehicle rental company. It works with auto dealerships to offer rent-to-buy services for private clients over the long-term. The company said it will use the new funding to expand its portfolio of cars. It plans to control 100,000 cars in South Africa by 2024.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Egypt’s Startup Zedny Launches With a Pre-Seed Funding of $1.2 Million

Zedny the Egypt-based Arabic learning platform has launched with a prior investment of $ 1.2 million from angel investors. The platform starts with more than 200 online courses and 400 animated video summaries of global business bestsellers, as well as more than 5000 hours of learning.

“Zedny provides content in Arabic because it is the language with which most employees in Egypt speak and think,” said co-founder and CCO of Zedny Basil Khattab. “Currently, apart from Zedny, there is no localized cross-skills learning and development platform in Arabic that has it all.

Here Is What You Need To Know

Zedny.com is now available in the Middle East. Its target audience is that of individuals wishing to develop their business skills and acquire general knowledge. It also targets people looking for work and employees who want to climb the corporate ladder.
Zedny offers one-year online learning and development at a fraction of the cost of an offline training course for an employee. In addition, the platform can act as an external employee performance evaluator thanks to its AI integrations. It integrates gamification into the HR development cycle to encourage individuals to develop their skills and business acumen.
Zedny co-founder and CEO Mohamed Youssef El Baz said:

“It is essential that companies begin to explore modern L&D solutions in order to hire staff and develop employees.”

Through the platform, employees, managers and individuals are placed on a designated path of learning and career development. These paths address behavioral, social and commercial knowledge, as well as office and digital tools to broaden the horizons of users. Research suggests that online learning allows learners to absorb five times more material for each hour of training. As a result, productivity within organizations is increased and employee performance is improved.
The World Economic Forum predicts that a third of basic professional skills will change over the next five years. If the skills gap is not closed within the next 3 to 5 years, this would have a negative impact on the future growth of a business. Zedny says that for this reason, he aims to build Arab human capital, one business at a time.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer