Jeff Bezos backs African startup

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, has made his first startup investment in Africa.

His venture capital fund, Bezos Expeditions, supported a Series B funding which raised $30m for Chipper Cash, an Africa-focused US firm which enables instant cross-border mobile money transfers. The company has 3m users on its platform across Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria and South Africa, and processes an average of 80,000 transactions daily. It will use the funds for expansion into countries to be announced in 2021.

Capital Alliance invests $20m in Accelerex

Private equity firm Africa Capital Alliance has invested $20m in Nigeria-focused financial services company Accelerex. Mauritius-based Accelerex owns one of the largest payment terminal service providers in Nigeria, which works with over 95% of Nigerian banks and 90,000 merchants. Its agency banking arm AccelerexNetwork offers services to financially underserved Nigerians through a network of 9,000 agents, and plans to reach 40,000 agents by the end of 2021. It intends to use the investment to expand into Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa over the next 24 months.

Trafigura enters cobalt trading agreement with EGC

Commodity trader Trafigura has signed a cobalt trading agreement with the DRC’s Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC). The agreement includes finance by Trafigura to fund the creation of strictly controlled artisanal mining zones, the installation of ore purchasing stations and costs related to the transparent and traceable delivery of cobalt hydroxide to Trafigura. Under the supply terms, EGC will ensure that the ore marketed by Trafigura complies with OECD regulations on conflict minerals. Cobalt, commonly used in smartphone batteries, has long been associated with conflict and illegal mining.

Atlas Mara exits Rwanda and Tanzania

Atlas Mara, the African banking group co-founded by Bob Diamond, has sold its assets in Rwanda and Tanzania to Kenya’s KCB Group. KCB will acquire Atlas Mara’s 62% shareholding in Banque Populaire du Rwanda and all of Atlas Mara’s indirect interests in BancABC Tanzania. Atlas Mara, which is engaged in discussions with bondholders over its debts, says Covid-19 has accelerated plans to partner in or exit markets where it did not see a clear near-term path to acceptable scale and profitability.