Nigerian youth-led startup, Kippa, closes $3.2M. 1 other thing and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today.

1. Nigerian youth-led startup, Kippa, closes $3.2M

Kippa, a Nigerian youth-led startup, has closed a US$3.2 million in pre-seed funding.

The finding comes as the business accounting startup looks to scale its small business financial management app.

Kippa was launched in June by brothers Kennedy Ekezie and Duke Ekezie together with Jephtah Uche.

The startup developed an app to help merchants increase cash flow by recovering debts.

With Kippa’s app, small business owners can keep track of debtors and send automated debt reminders.

According to local media, merchants using Kippa recover debts three times faster, unlocking critical cash flow that is essential to the survival of their business.

Led by Target Global, the US$3.2 million pre-seed funding round saw the participation of Entrée Capital, Alter Global and Rally Cap Ventures, Sriram Krishnan (investor in Khatabook), Raffael Johnen (CEO, Auxmoney), Babs Ogundeyi (CEO, Kuda), Chris Bouwer (board member, Cellulant), Kyane Kassiri, Edward Suh (Goodwater Capital), and Sajid Rahman.

---

Tech Trivia: Which of the following is a reciprocal link?

A A link to a page within the same website
B A link that has an easy-to-remember URL
C A link that is only published for a short period of time
D A link to a website that links back to the site where the link is published

Answer: See end of post

---

2. Three Nigerian startups share $480,000 winning Jack Ma funding for African businesses

Three Nigerian firms have won $480,000 in total after featuring in a programme funded by Chinese billionaire, Jack Ma.

The initiative, Jack Ma funding for African businesses, is devoted to startups looking to solve major socio-economic problems in Africa.

Read also: Nigeria’s Identitypass closes $360k pre-seed funding. 2 other things and a trivia

Lagos-based food processing company, Releaf, emerged second in the contest, receiving $250,000.

Meanwhile, two other Nigerian firms, Gricd and Publiseer, finished amongst the top 10 finalists, clinching $100,000 each in prize funding.

Local media confirmed that an additional $10,000 was allocated to each finalist for a training program to be hosted in Alibaba Group’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China.

The grand winner was Egypt-based Praxilab, which went on to receive $300,000.

---

Trivia Answer: Reciprocal Link

A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two websites. For example, if website A links to website B, then website B can add a reciprocal link back to website A. The result of a reciprocal link is two websites that link to each other.

Reciprocal links are typically created for one of two purposes: 1) to establish a partnership between two websites, or 2) to boost search engine ranking. If two websites provide related information, the webmasters may decide it makes sense to link to each other. They can establish an online partnership by providing reciprocal links on their websites.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now