Nigeria’s mobility fintech company Moove, Uber’s largest vehicle supply partner in EMEA, has announced a further US$76 million in funding to fuel further global expansion. Founded in 2019 by British-born Nigerians Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, Moove is democratizing vehicle ownership in Africa by providing revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs.
Mastercard has agreed to purchase a minority stake in the fintech division of MTN Group, Africa’s largest cell phone provider, which it values at US$5.2 billion. The signing of the formal investment agreements will likely occur very soon as both parties near the end of the regular due diligence process.
Founders Factory Africa has secured an additional US$114 million in funding from Mastercard Foundation and Johnson & Johnson to scale its model to better serve founders across the African tech ecosystem. Founders Factory, which originally launched in London in 2015 and has already built more than 70 startups, launched African operations in Johannesburg in 2018, from where it plans to design, build and scale 140 disruptive tech startups across Africa.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.