Last week in brief...DFI and venture capital deals hogged the limelight in what was a light news week in Africa's deal world last week. The deal that captured much of the attention was the Series A round for Nigeria-based payment startup Paystack. The firm, which was started in 2016, has landed $8 million in a round led by Stripe, a fellow-payments company headquartered in San Francisco, with additional commitments coming from Visa. Returning investors Tencent and Y Combinator as well as a number of angel investors also took part in the latest round.

Another venture capital story, but this time an exit. Bamba, which was the beneficiary of one of the largest and most successful seed rounds completed by an East African startup last year, has been acquired. The Kenya-based data collection and analytics startup, which provides clients with reliable and cost-effective emerging market consumer insight data, has been bought by one of its original backers, Maximeyes, a business incubator and investor based in the UK.

On the fundraising side, an announcement was pushed out that Off-Grid Energy Access Fund had held its first close at the beginning of August. The debt fund, which is managed by Lions Head Global Partners, is being backed by a mix of development finance institutions and impact investment firms. Between them, the investors have committed some $58 million to the new fund, which will make debt investments in distributors, manufacturers, end-user credit providers and other businesses in Africa’s household energy access sector.

OPIC is investing debt in Twiga Foods, a mobile-driven supply platform for retail outlets, kiosks and market stalls in Kenya. The U.S. Government’s development finance institution is providing $5 million to the private equity-backed firm, which closed its Series A round a year ago. The loan will help finance a planned $10.3 million initiative by Twiga to boost its market presence and share with the purchase of new transport and storage equipment.

In another potential DFI deal, the IFC is mulling the potential of an investment in Tanzania Mortgage Refinancing Company. The deal is structured as a $2 million equity investment combined with up to $10 million in debt financing as part of the company’s medium term note program. The fresh capital will be used to bolster the company’s balance sheet and support the long-term growth of the mortgage financing market in the East African country.

We end with some partner content this week. RMB Corvest's CEO Mike Donaldson writes about how private equity investors will continue to be interested in investment opportunities, while still realizing that the continent’s diverse countries each present a variety of risks and opportunities, giving local investors a slight edge when it comes to cherry-picking the right deals.

That's it for this week. As always, you can review these and other stories by clicking through to this week's preview edition of the newsletter.

Allan Cunningham

Allan Cunningham is a senior media executive who has spent the last 15 years of his career working for some of the world’s most respected M&A and Private Equity media companies including Dow Jones’s publications Private Equity Analyst and VentureWire and most recently, The Deal. He has built a number of successful digital and event content businesses, both subscription and sponsor-supported, delivering information and content-marketing services to clients in the M&A and broader deal ecosystem. He recently struck out on his own and launched Rowayton Press, a multi-platform media company focused on the private capital opportunities in emerging and frontier markets. Mr. Cunningham holds a Bachelors degree from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

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