Pastel Locks in $5.5 Million Seed Funding Led by TLcom to Optimise African SMEs
80% of Nigeria’s 40 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) fail to last beyond their fifth year, owing to a lack of digitisation and sub-optimal business practices. 3 graduate students at Stanford University: Abuzar Royesh, Olamide Oladeji, and Izunna Okonkwo, are trying to solve this problem through their startup, Pastel. They’ve just raised $5.5 million to do that.
Pastel’s $5.5 million seed round was raised by pan-African VC firm TLcom Capital with participation from Global Founders Capital (GFC), DFS Labs, Ulu Ventures, Plug and Play, Golden Palm Investments, and Soma Cap. This round follows a $620,000 pre-seed round the startup raised in 2021.
Photo courtesy of Stars Foundation.
Source: TechCabal (link opens in a new window)
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