INFOGRAPHIC: Startup Funding in Africa and the Middle East — Week 29

Oyinebiladou Omemu -
  • d.light secures a $176 million multi-currency securitization facility from African Frontier Capital
  • Israeli AI medical startup, CytoReason secures $80 million in a private funding round backed by Nvidia and Pfizer.
  • Omani climate tech startup, 44.01 raises $37 million in a Series A funding round led by Equinor Ventures and Shorooq Partners.
  • Bioniq raises $15 million in a Series B funding round led by HV Capital and Unbound.
  • Egyptian fintech, Dopay closes a $13.5 million Series A extension round led by Argentem Creek Partners.
  • Pan-African logistic fintech, Logidoo receives a $50,000 grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

d.light raises $176M to scale its solar operations in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania 

  • d.light, a company in the off-grid solar solutions industry, has secured a $176 million multi-currency securitization facility from African Frontier Capital to purchase receivables in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
  • d.light, first launched in 2007, by Ned Tozun, and Sam Goldman, is a company focused on providing off-grid solar solutions through its PayGo consumer finance model, with its market across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
  • With the new funding, d.light plans to scale up its PayGo consumer finance model to make solar-powered products more accessible, enabling six million people across the three countries to access affordable and renewable energy over the next three years.

Israeli AI medical startup, CytoReason, raises $80m in fresh capital

  • CytoReason, an Israeli startup that uses AI to develop computational disease models for drug discovery, has secured $80 million in a private funding round. The round was backed by Nvidia and Pfizer, with additional participation from Thermo Fisher and OurCrowd.
  • The company was founded in 2016 by David Harel, Professor Shai Shen-Orr, Elina Starosvetsky, and Renaud Gaujoux, and develops machine-learning software that combines various data sources to create a digital simulator of the human body, predicting drug responses and aiding in drug discovery. This technology helps pharma and biotech companies shorten trial phases, reduce development costs, and increase the likelihood of drug approval.
  • CytoReason plans to use the funding to expand its disease models into additional indications, grow its molecular and clinical data, establish a US hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hire more employees.