More Nigerian startups secure funding amid pandemic

Technology keeps playing an increasingly remarkable role in Africa generally as it evolves from the edge to the mainstream of the universal economy.

Despite confirmed coronavirus 873 cases in Nigeria according to the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), tech startups in the country, appear to be pulling weight as they secure more investment for their businesses.

Barely a week ago, a Nigerian biotech startup — 54gene — announced a $15 million Series A funding led by Adjuvant Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm which centres on funding companies working on drug development and health research.

The CEO, Abasi Ene-Obong said in an official statement shared with smepeaks that the company will ride on the partnership to build a genomic resource that will add significantly to global health.

Similarly, Stears, a Nigerian digital media company has raised a seed investment of $600,000 seed round led by a Nigerian-based fund with contribution from Luminate, a philanthropic organisation established by the Omidyar Group and another undisclosed local venture capital company.

The company also runs Stears Business, a media publication focused on churning out articles on economics, finance, and policymaking in Nigeria in addition to another data collection, research and analytics division of the company; Stears Data.

With the funding, Stears will reportedly acquire new talent, continue data collection, and launch CoreData — a digital data platform that will give governments and organisations access to demographic and economic reports across the country, in June 2020.

In other news, uLesson — a Nigerian e-learning platform — revealed new funding raised from Founder Collective, a marquee seed-stage venture capital fund.

Though the new funding wasn’t disclosed, it is important to note that, in 2019, uLesson, the edtech startup established by the ex-Konga founder, Sim Shagaya raised $3.1 million in seed funding. In a Medium post shared, the company said this latest investment is a part of its seed funding round secured in 2019 from TICom Capital.

The investment fund will be used to further expand uLesson’s online learning platform and also provide African learners high-quality, affordable and accessible education.

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