Three investments totalling $191K made by the Catalytic Africa Matching Fund
In June and July, the co-investment fund Catalytic Africa, which was founded in 2019 by the African Business Angels Network (ABAN) and AfriLabs, invested a total of EUR174,000 (US $191,000) in three startups from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya.
With the help of AfriLabs, a pan-African network of technology and innovation hubs, and ABAN, promising African growth-stage entrepreneurs will have access to a larger pool of funding, the startup ecosystem will be supported, and the impact will be more apparent to institutional funders.
It established the Catalytic co-investment fund, which will pair up investments made by accredited angel investors with those made by institutional funds. The project, which has so far disbursed more than EUR875,000 (US$960,000) in 15 qualified matching grants, is supported by the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) and the Digital Africa fund. In the previous two months, three of those were made.
A 3X matching investment of EUR60,000 (US $66,000) from Catalytic Africa was made after Cameroon Angel Network invested EUR20,000 (US $22,000) in the fintech startup Koree, a card wallet application that addresses the lack of spare change in Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa.
“Koree aims to transform the retail payment and marketing landscape in Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa by offering inclusive solutions for both customers and merchants. The startup addresses the region’s rampant spare change scarcity, which makes cash payments for low-cost items with high-value bills nearly impossible. Simultaneously, we look forward to empowering millions of African consumers through an inventive reward system,” Koree founder Magalie Gauze-Sanga said.
Customers can save for items they want to buy interest-free using Mosmos, a save-to-buy platform based in Kenya. Through an investment from the Nairobi Business Angel Network, the startup also received EUR60,000 (US$66,000) in matching funding from Catalytic Africa. Antler East Africa also provides assistance to Mosmos.
“At the moment, Mosmos is working alongside amazing businesses like Hotpoint and FoneXpress to help their customers adopt the Save-to-Buy model, and with this funding, we look forward to unlocking this new customer segment for many other great Kenyan businesses,” said Mosmos CEO Masha Chengo.
The DRC-based ITOT Africa, an ed-tech startup with headquarters in Lubumbashi that provides training, digital educational tools, and other IT consulting services to corporations, SMEs, NGOs, and entrepreneurs, was the third startup to unlock matching funds from Catalytic Africa this quarter. ITOT Africa received EUR54,000 (US $59,000) in matching funds to help DRC Impact Angels’ investment in the startup.
“This investment will create an avenue for us to venture into a new market such as Kolwezi, which is the largest mining city in DRC. With this expansion, we will be able to offer training, digital, and coding business services to the local ecosystem, including mining companies and international clients with operations in the city. Moreover, we will now be able to strengthen our core product offering through Okademy,” said Samy Mwamba, co-founder of ITOT Africa.
