Firms earned $1.5bn in FDI last year

Nigeria’s young innovative companies kicked off the year on a positive note with more funding coming into their businesses, New Telegraph has learnt. This came as six of the country’s start-ups raised a total of N15.6 billion ($31.5 million) in January. According to the intelligence report gathered by the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), the funds were raised in separate deals from both foreign and local investors. Top on the list of startups that raised funds in January was the fintech company, Bamboo, a brokerage app that lets Africans buy and trade US stocks in real-time.

The start-up raised a $15 million Series A funding round to accelerate its growth, move into new markets and launch more products. The $15 million Series A round was led by Greycroft participation from Motley Fool Ventures, Saison Capital, Chrysalis Capital, and YCombinator’sMichaelSeibel, amongst others. With the capital, Bamboo plans to further accelerate its growth, doubling down on unlocking new markets and launching more products. Similarly, Nigerian ehealth pharmaceutical distribution startup, DrugStoc secured $4.4 million in a Series A funding round led by Africa HealthCare Master Fund, Chicago-basedventure firm Vested World, German Development Bank (DEG) amongst others.

The e-health drugs procurement platform was born out of a hospital management company Integra- Health, founded by Chibuzo Opara and Adham Yehia in 2015. According to Opara, the platform’smonthlyrevenues have grown over 1,500 per cent in the last three years, a demand brought by the quality assurancethatcomeswith DrugStoc’splatformandthey earn a commission for every sale made. In the same vein, SeamlessHR, a startup that builds world-class cloud solutions to help organisations manage most HR processes on one platform, raised $10 million initsSeriesAfundinground, which will see it expand to new frontiers in Southern and East Africa. This funding round was led by TLcom Capital, with significant contributions from Capria Ventures, Lateral Capital, Enza Capital, Ingressive Capital, and some private investors.

The new fund came just about a year after announcing a seed round. The fresh capital is expected to further strengthen the company’s position as Africa’s leading cloud HR and payroll platform. Speaking on this, the company’s CEO, Dr. Emmanuel Okeleji, said: “We are fanatical about customer success, and this funding will enable us to invest in the continuous optimisation of customer experience across all touch points, adding new features and functionalities to empower our customers even more.” (Courtesy NewTelegraph)