biNu Mobile, a startup that builds the mobile app platform that brings iPhone-like experiences to low-end smartphones and feature phones, has secured US$2 million investment from Savannah Fund and Tomorrow Ventures — seed investment firms from Africa and America respectively.
“Yes, biNu is an Australian company, but the company has over 1 million of its users in Africa. Africa is one of the high growth areas they will focus on. There are a lot of synergies for us to add value together and also serve entrepreneurs in Africa who need to distribute content to Africans.” Mbwana Alliy told Forbes via email correspondence.
Alliy was explaining why Savannah opted to look outside Africa for its first inaugural investment yet it is based in Africa.
“Ideally Africans are best positioned to create companies serving Africans but that’s not always the case. biNu is able to get 1M users in Africa being in Australia- that’s fantastic and we will help them grow more in Africa which benefits Africans,” Alliy added.
However, Alliy did not disclose exactly how much Savannah Fund invested in the US$2 million contribution.
Savannah fund invests between US$25,000-US$500,000, in high growth technology (web and mobile) startups in Africa and aims to bridge the venture capital investments gap currently existing in Africa.
biNu on the other hand, has developed a patented software platform that provides Internet apps and services like Facebook, Twitter and news and live scores on low-end phones operating o 2G (GPRS/ EDGE).
biNu works on the thousands of Java-enabled and Android-devices and supports millions of users globally with rapid adoption rates in emerging economies where mobile phones are the primary Internet access device.
