Senegalese mobile classified ads platform CoinAfrique has raised a $3.09 million round of growth funding which will enable the francophone company to expand further into french-speaking Africa.
The most downloaded classifieds app in francophone Africa is the first startup in the region to raise such a significant amount, according to a CoinAfrique press release.
New shareholders backing this round of funding include Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), an impact investment funds manager for small and medium-sized businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, and a selection of investors represented by French Partners and Mercure International, a leading retailer in the french-speaking region of Africa.
With more than 150,000 monthly active users across 16 countries, CoinAfrique is the french classifieds market-leader from an African perspective, and the funding will be invested in continuing expansion plans throughout the region.
The recent fundraising is evidence of a generally favorable trend for startups in Africa, according to research by venture capital fund Partech Ventures.
The VC fund revealed that African startups raised $560m in 2017, improving on the $368.8m from 2016, representing a 53 percent year-on-year growth.
The total amount of investment in 2017 was achieved by 124 startups through 128 rounds of funding.
Matthias Papet and Eric Genêtre, co-founders of CoinAfrique, reacted with delight when addressing their recent round of expansion funding, mentioning an ambitious target in their statement.
The successful fundraising highlights the fact that CoinAfrique has positioned itself in a booming market and will allow us to accelerate our activities on our existing markets, while serving new countries and continuing to develop the best user experience, one that is always closest to the needs of our community of buyers and sellers. We will exceed 10 million monthly users by 2022,” the co-founders said in a statement.
Towards the end of 2017 CoinAfrique was the only startup from french-speaking Africa out of 20 startups selected by the World Bank Group for their XL Africa business acceleration initiative, according to BisnisAfrica.
CoinAfrique has benefited from the exposure of the accelerator, enabling it to continuing growing in West Africa and beyond while stoking its ambition to exceed 10 million monthly in the next four years.
The XL Africa business accelerator also selected other startups which have gone on to achieve further success, including Sendy, Snapplify, and Rensource, with the Nigerian distributed energy provider raising $3.5 million in funding in January this year, according to DisruptAfrica.
