Featured Image Credit: Techcrunch Good day,
Today, I’m discussing: Smile Identity’s $7m Series A
Kenya increases the cost of airtime
MarketForce’s $2m pre-Series A
Nigeria’s Federal Government to block MultiChoice accounts
Smile Identity raises $7m Series A
US-based identity verification and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) compliance tools startup for Africans, Smile Identity, has announced a $7m Series A funding to build KYC and identity verification tools.
The round was led by Costanao Ventures and CRE Venture Capital. Existing investors like Khosla Impact, ValueStream Ventures, Beta.Ventures, 500 Startups, and Story Ventures participated. New VCs like LocalGlobe, Intercept Ventures, and Future Africa also took part in the round.
In total , Smile Identity has raised $11 million from investors with this latest funding round. In 2019, it raised $4 million in seed funding.
What does Smile Identity do? Founded by Mark Straub and Willliam Bares in 2017, Smile Identity provides identity verification and KYC compliance tools to help African banks, telecom companies, financial service providers, and ride-sharing businesses better engage their customers.
Expansion so far? Following the co-founders’ arrival in Africa, the business has made key strides in its activities, such as the establishment of a local presence in six African countries: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda. Interestingly , the company claims to connect to over 15 different identity authorities, while its ID validation covers over 250 million identities on the continent. The new investment will allow the company to offer even better services and grow in new markets. It will also support more ID types and hire more engineers and staff on the continent.For context, read here . Safaricom increases the cost of airtime Smile Identity’s $7m Series A, Safaricom increases cost of airtime, MarketForce’s $2m pre-Series A, Nigeria attempts blocking MultiChoice accounts 2 Kenyan President , Uhuru Kenyatta, has accepted the Kenyan Parliamentary Committee’s additional taxes proposal. Last week, I wrote about the Kenyan Parliamentary Committee’s recent call for new taxes on airtime and data service prices. Finally, the bill has been passed into law. Because of recent changes to the taxation of telephone and Internet data services, Safaricom, one of Kenya’s top telecom companies, has adjusted the pricing of its products and services. What does this mean for Safaricom’s subscribers? Calls made between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. will now cost Sh4.87 per minute, while calls made between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. will only cost Sh2.50 […]