Transsion is a Chinese mobile-phone and device maker. Through its subsidiary, Transsion Future Hub, it plans to source and fund early-stage African fintech startup. However, Transsion is not alone. It cooperates with Wapi Capital in its African investment.
Transion headquarter is in Shenzhen. The company is an African top-seller of smartphones. In 2019 it opened and financed Future Hub, an incubator and seed fund for African startups.
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Meanwhile, Wapi Capital is the venture fund based in Kenya. It facilitates digital payments between African and Asia via mobile money or bank accounts.
The funding
Both Wapi Capital and Transsion Future Hub and Wapi Capital will work together to select early-stage African fin-tech companies, in September 2019. The selected fin-tech companies will get equity-based investments of up to $100,000.
However, Wapi Capital says it won’t contribute funds to Future Hub’s Africa investments. Therefore, the company will only help determine the viability and scale of the startups. That includes the due diligence and deal flow of the startup.
The opportunity is open for any startups from all 54 African countries.
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Transsion investment in Africa
Transsion plans to have a various investment in Africa. Thus, Wapi Capital fin-tech partnership is not the only Transsion’s Venture Capital (VC) activity in the continent. It plans to also invest in other startups in Africa. The startups range from ad-tech, e-commerce, logistic, media and entertainment.
Besides, Transsion Future Hub’s current partnership includes Phoenix and Scoop. Phoenix is an Africa-focused browser company, meanwhile, Scoop is a content aggregator. Other than those two companies, Transsion currently also has cooperation with Boomplay. Boomplay is an Africa music platform.
Transsion’s commitment to African startup investments comes as the company is on the verge of listing on China’s new Nasdaq-style STAR Market tech exchange. Transsion mentioned the IPO is in process and that it could raise up to 3 billion yuan (or $426 million).
