Kotani gets US$2M pre-seed to help African workers send money home via crypto

Nairobi-based Kotani Pay is a crypto payments startup with a vision to make cross-border remittances easier for the large underbanked populations in Africa. The two-year-old startup is targeting a use case that concerns the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people including in Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and South Africa. The startup, which has closed a $2 million pre-seed funding round led by P1 Ventures, with participation from a number of investors including DCG/Luno and Flori Ventures, plans to further expand to Rwanda, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Nigeria.

Talent City, now known as Itana, has raised a US$2 million pre-seed, money it intends to use to establish a digital free zone. Itana, founded by CEO Luqman Edu, COO Coco Liu and ex-Andela and Flutterwave co-founder, Iyin Aboyeji, a founding investor, is primed to be Africa’s first digital free zone. The founders say the funding will support the startup’s efforts to improve Nigeria’s ease-of-doing-business index, drive foreign direct investment (FDI), and catalyze employment in Nigeria.

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Anchor, a Nigerian banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider, has raised $2.4 million in seed investment. Justin Kan’s Goat Capital led the financing round, which also welcomed participation from FoundersX, Rebel Fund and some existing investors, including Y Combinator and Byld Ventures.

CDPI Emerging Markets

They didn’t call it a CDP, but Meta just launched a product to “connect your first-party data from any sources to any destination, streamlining your data handling processes and unlocking valuable insights to optimize your marketing campaigns.” The name of this miracle cure is Signals Gateway, and pricing seems to start at $30 per month. Data is hosted in Amazon Web Services and, at least in theory, Meta can’t see it.

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Kotani gets US$2M pre-seed to help African workers send money home via crypto — without the internet

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LocalGlobe and Pronomos Capital back Itana to pave the way for Africa’s first digital free zone

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Meta Launches a CDP