Meet the Nigerian startups led by female founders that secured funding in 2021
Meet the Nigerian startups led by female founders that secured funding in 2021
In recent years, there has been an increase in investment in the African information and communications technology sector. Female-founded startups, on the other hand, have received only a small fraction of total funding.
According to a new report by Briter Bridges titled "In Search of Equity: Exploring Africa's Gender Gap in Startup Financing," between 2013 and 2021, only 3% of funds invested in African startups went to female-owned businesses, a figure that is expected to rise to 45% by 2025.
As stated in the report, one of the reasons for this is that the few available female tech founders typically choose subsectors that are underserved by the mainstream tech industry, such as edtech and healthtech.
A common characteristic among all of these female-led startups is that they are typically self-funded, which is due to the difficulty in securing venture capital funding. Despite these challenges, some female-led startups have been successful in obtaining funding in recent years.
Here are some of them.
Edukoya: $3.5 million pre-seed round (Dec. 2021)
Edukoya is the brainchild of Honey Ogundeyi, who also serves as the company's president and chief executive officer. It was founded in May 2021 and has since raised $3.5 million in a pre-seed round, which is the largest ever raised in Africa for an education technology company.
Students can study more effectively with Edukoya, a comprehensive exam preparation platform that was developed to help them study more effectively. In order to achieve its mission of creating the world's largest online learning platform for Africans, it intends to increase access to and affordability of high-quality learning materials and support.
African students will be connected in real time to digital curriculum content and on-demand teachers for online learning, the organization hopes to accomplish this goal.
After starting Fashpa, a Nigerian fashion e-commerce store in 2014, the CEO has plenty of experience in the field of entrepreneurship. In addition, she was the first Chief Marketing Officer of Kuda, a Nigerian neobank, which she co-founded.
In his statement, Ogundeyi stated that a significant portion of the pre-seed funding would be used to recruit new employees and grow the company's learner base, as well as to develop technology for the company's learning platform, which would include support for the company's pan-African and European developer hubs.
Okra: $3.5 million in a seed round (April, 2021)
A seed round of $3.5 million was raised by Okra, an API platform led by Fara Ashiru Jibutoh, in April 2021 to fund its growth. Okra was established in 2019 by Fara Ashiru Jituboh (CEO) and David Peterside. A "super-connector," as the company describes itself, is an API that creates a secure portal and process for exchanging real-time financial data between customers, applications, and financial institutions.
Fara previously worked at JP Morgan, Fidelity Investments, and Daimler Mercedes Benz before joining forces with Peterside to co-found Okra in 2012. The CEO and CTO of Okra, she has established herself as one of the most promising founders in the predominantly male-dominated African financial technology scene.
A total of $4.5 million in two rounds ($1 million in pre-seed) has been raised by Okra, which intends to use the most recent round of funding to expand its data infrastructure across Nigeria.
Reelfruit: $3 million in series A funding (September 2021)
Reelfruit was founded in 2012 by Affiong Williams. The company manufactures a variety of nutritious dried fruit and nut snacks, which it distributes to schools, hotels, and retail supermarkets across the country, among other places.
The Nigerian Agritech startup announced in September that it had raised $3 million in Series A funding to support the establishment of a new factory and the expansion of its capacity.
For the first few years, the CEO's personal savings and some assistance from family members were used to fund the process.
Reelfruit was a participant in the Village Capital accelerator program, where it was selected as one of the accelerator's $50,000 prize winners after winning a $50,000 prize in the accelerator's competition.
Shuttlers: $1.6 million seed funding (November 2021)
In order to digitize transportation, Shuttlers is a mobility startup that uses technology to accomplish this. Busters, founded in 2016 by Damilola Olokesusi and Busola Majekodunmi, provides businesses with better mobility options for their employees by allowing them to use a ride-sharing platform.
VestedWorld led the seed funding round, which also included Interswitch, Rising Tide Africa, CcHub Syndicate, Launch Africa, EchoVC, Consonance Investment, ShEquity (formerly known as ShEquity), Sakore (formerly known as CMC 21 & Alsa), Five35 (formerly known as Nikky Taurus), and others.
Damilola (CEO and co-founder) and her team bootstrapped the business, which has grown from a single route — Ajah to Victoria Island — to over thirty routes, over 300 bus stops, and over 100 (unbranded) buses within the Lagos city limits. Damilola and her team are now looking to expand the business beyond the city limits.
The funds will be used to expand the company's operations into new cities both within and outside of Nigeria.
Bitmama: Pre-seed funding of $350,000 (October 2021)
With the help of Bitmama, users all over Africa can conduct cryptocurrency transactions on a secure blockchain infrastructure, allowing them to save time and money.
Iselema is a trained pharmacist who became interested in the Blockchain after being duped out of $250,000 while trading Bitcoin. She is the CEO of Bitmama. Bitmama was born as a result of this experience.
In October, the startup announced the completion of a $350,000 pre-seed round. The startup claims that the funding will allow it to expand its operational footprint, grow its team, and enter new markets across the continent as a result of the investment.
