Hi all,

it’s time again for our investment and industry news roundup covering Sub-Saharan Africa.

Our highlights this time:

🔋⛏️ Strategic partnerships and increasing mining operations are gradually positioning Africa as a pivotal player in the world’s battery supply ecosystem

💰💰 Significant portion of 2023 investments in African start-ups - over 30% - have been channeled into climate tech

💨☀️ Several exciting renewable energy developments, from the construction start of South Africa’s largest wind farm to a new solar farm, which will augment the renewable energy supply of Africa’s largest gold mine to 85%

Read on to learn more.

Investor news

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😍 Good News:

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• Kenya plans to raise Sh9trn (around 55bn USD) from green bonds
• The AfDB joins an international coalition on green bonds, which are becoming more important for supporting ecological investments
• Climate tech startups received a third of all funding invested into African start-ups in 2023
• AfriLabs launches Connect Deal Room to boost local investment landscape

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👎 Challenges:

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• Vulnerable countries need debt relief 'now or never', new report warns
• Total investment into the African tech startup ecosystem fell by 27.8 per cent to US$2.4 billion in 2023

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Industry News

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🥑 Agriculture/ Food systems:

• Kenya: Apollo Agriculture secures $10 million to service 400,000 more small-scale African farmers
• Industry News: The revival of old crops is key to saving Africa’s degraded soils to be able to meet its demand for food

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🌳 Ecosystems

• Industry News: New regional African alliance launches to promote carbon markets
• Namibia: Windhoek’s Zero Waste Store promotes sustainable shopping experience and aims to eradicate packaging and food waste
• Tanzania: Tanzania is in the process of registering $1 billion worth in carbon trade projects to boost national revenue

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💡 Energy and infrastructure

• Industry News: Emerging Trends in Africa’s Solar Energy - Start-Ups, Investment, and Growth
• Ivory Coast: Agreement reached with infrastructure investor PFO Africa to built 52MW solar plant - the country’s largest to date.
• Nigeria: CET Power Projects is undergoing a transformation, emerging as a frontrunner in innovative solutions in renewable power generation, transmission and distribution.
• DRC: Africa’s largest Gold Mine will boost its renewable energy supply to 85% by end of 2024 leveraging hydro and solar power
• Namibia: Sustainable Power Solutions is pioneering Namibia's energy sector with a N$200 million, 10MW solar plant project, introducing a novel wheeling model to supply clean energy directly to various customers.
• Namibia: Namibia’s Progressive Leap Towards a Green Hydrogen Economy
• South Africa: Renewables platform, Lyra Energy, aims to transform South Africa's energy sector by providing medium-sized and large commercial and industrial entities with distributed, affordable, and predictable utility-scale renewable energy.
• South Africa: Seriti Resources Starts Construction on South Africa’s Largest Wind Farm

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🚕 Mobility and transport systems

• South Africa: BHBW announces partnership with Motrec International to become distributor of electric utility vehicles
• Togo: Clean energy powers a silent revolution on Togo’s roads with the deployment of electric two-and three-wheelers
• Rwanda: China’s e-mobility player Build Your Dream is entering East Africa with a Rwanda dealership
• Ethiopia: Ethiopia bans non-electric car imports
• South Africa: Zero Carbon Charge signs R1bn deal to bring EV superchargers to South Africa
• Ghana: E-bike startup Kofa, which is pioneering Africa’s first multi-use, swappable battery network, has announced the planned launch of its second-generation Kore 2 Swap & Go network.

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🏭 Industrialisation

• South Africa: ReElement Technologies partners with Afrivolt to develop Africa’s lithium-ion battery supply chain forming a closed-loop battery and electric vehicle manufacturing ecosystem within Africa.
• Industry News: Africa’s battery manufacturing activity is charging ahead
• Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe looks to China to secure a place in the EV battery supply chain with the export of lithium

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💧 Water systems

• Namibia: Chinese group CCECC wins $30m contract for water treatment plant in Namibia

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💻 Digital transformation

• Industry News: Google and Oracle ramp up cloud in Africa to tap fast-growing e-Conomy
• Nigeria: Miden, a fintech that allows businesses to issue virtual cards through its API, has been selected for Y Combinator’s winter 2024 batch
• South Africa: Absa introduces ChatWallet for WhatsApp Banking in South Africa
• South Africa: Microsoft to build new high-tech data centre in South Africa

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