🪦 R.I.P. Okra

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⟹ 🚀 STARTUPS WATCH 🚀 ⟸

Here are the 3 top startups in the African ecosystem I think you need to know:

BYON8 is a Sweden-founded, Pan-African healthtech company on a mission to make high-quality healthcare accessible and personalized through AI-powered diagnostics and digital consultations.

Launched in 2017 by a team of doctors, developers, and mathematicians, BYON8 spent over four years in R&D before debuting its app in late 2020. The platform blends clinical expertise with data science, enabling users across Africa to access affordable, evidence-based care on demand.

With headquarters in Stockholm and Nairobi, BYON8 is licensed by Kenya’s Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council and operates under strict compliance standards like HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO27001. Its core team includes seasoned physicians and healthtech veterans committed to delivering healthcare that’s not just digital, but deeply human.

⟹ 💼 💰️ VENTURE CAPITAL WATCH 💼 💰️ ⟸

🚀 This Week in African VC: Infra, Shutdowns & Strategic Capital.

3️⃣ Infra Is Eating the AI Stack: Cerebrium raises $8.5M for real-time AI

SA-born Cerebrium just raised an $8.5M seed round led by Gradient (Google’s AI fund), with YC, Authentic Ventures & top AI operators joining in. The platform makes it insanely easy to deploy real-time, multimodal AI apps—think voice, video, chat—without scaling infra nightmares.

Already powering tools like Tavus and Deepgram, Cerebrium is a bet on the developer-first infra wave, serving global markets from Africa. With GPU-as-a-service baked in, they’re abstracting away infra for the next billion-dollar AI-native startups.

Market Signal: Infra for real-time AI (esp. multimodal) is the next arms race—and Cerebrium’s global design from Day 1 gives it unfair leverage.

2️⃣ Soft Landing, Hard Lesson: Okra quietly shuts down after raising $16.5M+

Nigeria’s open banking poster child is officially done. Okra shut down in May but the ecosystem only found out when co-founder Fara Ashiru joined Kernel (UK) last week. Sources say ~$5M will be returned to investors, but no audits or transparency were shared.

After raising $12M in a silent 2022 round led by Base10 (on top of $4.5M disclosed), Okra pivoted to cloud infra (Nebula) to survive AWS billing pain, only to lose pricing advantage when Amazon & Microsoft slashed rates. With no follow-on capital, a weakened team, and cloud burn, the end came fast.

VC Takeaway: Capital alone won’t save infra pivots without pricing power or clear moats. And founders need to own the narrative, especially on the way out.

1️⃣ Vertical Agri Infra Is Heating Up: Complete Farmer Raises $2.5M EU grant

Ghana’s Complete Farmer secured a $2.5M grant from AgriFI (EU-backed) to build 6 fulfillment hubs in northern Ghana. The goal? Shorten supply chains, boost rural farmer access to global markets, and power $100M+ in produce exports.

This adds to their $10.4M raised in 2023. With precision farming tools (CF Grower) and global buyer sourcing (CF Buyer), they’re building the Shopify x Twilio for agri-exports—digitized, scalable, and impact-backed.

Macro Note: Development finance is doubling down on digital infra + hard logistics hybrids—don’t sleep on these grant-backed growth stories.

👀 Investor Spotlight: Teranga Capital 👀

📍 Dakar, Senegal 🇸🇳 | Est. 2015

Teranga Capital is Senegal and Gambia’s first impact fund fully focused on startups and high-growth SMEs. With investments between 50M–300M FCFA (~$80K–$480K), Teranga delivers not just capital, but hands-on business support for founders underserved by traditional finance.

🧠 Thesis:

They back overlooked, under-capitalized African SMEs with long-term potential, pairing minority equity/quasi-equity with deep operational support.

🌍 Geographic Focus:

Senegal 🇸🇳 | The Gambia 🇬🇲

💸 Check Size & Stage:

• Seed to early growth

• FCFA 50M–300M (~$80K–$480K)

• Minority equity or quasi-equity

🔗 Approach:

• Capital + Coaching + TA = Full-stack support

• Embedded technical assistance & executive mentorship

• Strategic network spanning national, pan-African & global partners

💡 Vibe:

Mission-driven capital meets SME pragmatism. Quiet operators who are building the backbone of Francophone West Africa’s economy.

⟹ 📺️ MEDIA WATCH 📺️  ⟸

Here are the 5 key things in the news this week that you need to know:

1. South African-born AI infrastructure startup Cerebrium raises $8.5 million - Techcabal

2. Aria Ventures launches $1m fund to boost deep-tech investment in Egypt - Disrupt Africa

3. Kenya’s BuuPass secures undisclosed fresh investment from Yango Ventures  - Techcabal

4. Ghana’s Complete Farmer raises $2.5m from EU-funded AgriFI facility to boost expansion efforts - Disrupt Africa

5. Roqqu acquires Kenya-based Flitaa to enter East Africa’s crypto market - Disrupt Africa

And that’s your weekly dosage of the African startup ecosystem; thanks for reading.

Have a lovely rest of the week.

Gitonga, the Stoic Founder at StartupHub.Africa 🚀

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