MNT-Halan, Egypt’s leading fintech ecosystem, has announced the successful launch of Neuron, the proprietary core banking software that it developed and launched earlier this year. MNT-Halan began as a ride-hailing app for two- and three-wheeler vehicles in 2018, and has since evolved into a super app, becoming Egypt’s largest and fastest-growing lender to the unbanked….
Kaoun, a Tunisian fintech startup, has added new features to its payments app Flouci as a result of its participation in the Central Bank of Tunisia’s regulatory sandbox. Kaoun was founded in January 2018 by co-founders Nebras Jemel, Anis Kallel, and Rostom Bouazizi, who put their studies in the United States – at Harvard University,…
Startupbootcamp AfriTech and Telecel Group have opened applications for the second edition of the Africa Startup Initiative Programme (ASIP), which provides funding and support to selected companies. Startupbootcamp AfriTech was founded in 2017 as the first pan-African startup accelerator backed by multiple corporations. In March, Disrupt Africa announced a partnership with telecoms firm Telecel Group…
Following reports that the Indian government may ban cryptocurrency, the crypto market price charts were drenched in red on Wednesday, November 24. Bitcoin’s value has dropped by 25.51 percent to $46,601 on the Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber. On a global scale, the world’s oldest cryptocurrency has managed to keep its value above $50,000, despite the…
Twitter and Walmart are collaborating to launch an online shopping initiative via livestreams. The latest feature will allow users to make purchases from businesses directly on the microblogging platform while simultaneously watching a live broadcast. On November 28, the company will conduct its first live shopping stream test. Jason Derulo, a well-known R&B artist, will…
According to data from Kenya’s bureau of statistics, informal businesses power the country’s economy, accounting for 33.8 percent of GDP and 83.4 percent of total employment outside of small-scale agriculture. These businesses contribute significantly to the country’s economy, but they are underserved by traditional banking institutions, making it difficult for them to obtain the financing…
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world in commemorating the 2021 Universal Children’s Day, many students returned home with brand new laptops and desk computers, courtesy of the National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA’s efforts to improve and standardize a SMART digital education. “The gesture to Nigerian students was borne out of the Agency’s…
Busha, a Nigerian cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding to expand across Africa. Busha, which was founded in 2019, allows users to buy, sell, and manage their cryptocurrency portfolios through an easy-to-use mobile app. The startup has been expanding across Nigeria, and it has now raised a US$4.2 million seed round to…
According to reports, WhatsApp is working on increasing the time limit before you can delete messages for everyone in a chat. WhatsApp currently allows you to delete messages for everyone within 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds. This limit, however, is expected to be significantly increased in a future update. WhatsApp is currently working…
A piece of virtual real estate in the online world Decentraland was sold for a record $2.4 million (roughly Rs. 17 crore) in cryptocurrency, according to the buyer and seller, crypto investor Tokens.com and Decentraland. Decentraland is a virtual world – also known as a “metaverse” – where users can buy land, visit buildings, walk…
Tek Experts, a leading technology support service company, has reached a milestone of over 1,800 employees in Nigeria, making it the largest market of its operations globally. This milestone was announced during a media visit to the company as part of efforts to communicate the essence of the industry’s relatively new niche of tech support….
Wowzi, a Kenyan tech startup, has announced plans to create one million gig jobs for African youth through its online marketplace by 2022, after successfully delivering over 150,000 paid jobs in 2021. The company, which makes scalable influencer campaigns available to brands and companies of any size or industry, has announced plans to expand partnerships…
Most Africans want to use various insurance products but are often put off by the associated high premiums. As a result, it is not surprising that insurance penetration across the continent remains low, with reported premiums per capita 11 times lower than the global average, according to a McKinsey study. However, the market may soon…
Dayo Koleowo’s career path has taken him from construction to food delivery to venture capital, but he believes the lessons he has learned will serve him well as he backs innovative African tech startups with early-stage VC firm Microtraction. Koleowo studied Quantity Surveying at university and went to work in the public sector preparing bills…
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, does not intend to implement end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default on Messenger and Instagram until 2023. Last year, the company merged Messenger and Instagram chats as part of its plan to build a unified messaging system across all of its platforms. According to The Verge, while…
Three Egyptian startups are among the 12 selected from the MENA region to participate in the Techstars Riyadh accelerator, which provides US$120,000 in funding and other scaling support. Techstars Riyadh, which is run in collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT) and Raed Ventures, invests US$120,000 in each selected company and provides…
A recent survey conducted at the request of Kaspersky by Toluna research agency observed the technical challenges families faced during mandatory remote learning following lockdown measures that were implemented globally at the onset and continued in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of Nigerian families (58 percent) with two or more children…
The Blockchain Industry Coordinating Committee of Nigeria (BICCoN) has questioned the Central Bank of Nigeria’s recent actions in imposing a new ban on user accounts linked to crypto-related activity. In a news release, the blockchain collaborative body criticized the Central Bank of Nigeria’s recent “overreach.” Remember that the CBN ordered banks to stop processing cryptocurrency-related…
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that the country’s digital currency will be implemented in four stages, culminating in the eNaira’s interoperability with those of other central banks. Mrs Rakiya Mohammed, Director of the CBN’s Information Technology Department, stated this at the licensed payment service providers’ engagement session in Lagos on Monday, as…
Kenyan startups have been invited to apply for grants of up to EUR100,000 (US$113,000) from the develoPPP Ventures programme’s second cohort. DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH – launched the develoPPP Ventures program earlier this year on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. It aims to empower startups by…
GoDaddy has disclosed that the domain registrar experienced a security breach that allowed attackers access to the data of over 1 million active and inactive Managed WordPress users. Demetrius Comes, GoDaddy’s chief information security officer, stated in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company discovered suspicious activity in its Managed…
On May 15, 2021, I received a message from a lending company informing me that Mrs. X, whom I met during my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 2020, had not repaid a loan they had taken. I was supposed to be listed as an emergency contact. I was told not to believe this person…
In India, WhatsApp has added two new safety features: flash calls and message level reporting. Users can report accounts by flagging a specific message in the latter. The flash call feature is an addition to the SMS verification option required during the WhatsApp registration process. According to WhatsApp, these two features have been added to…
SIMcontrol, a leading mobile data connectivity platform for African enterprises, has announced the release of its fully-managed mobile APN product, which connects company data SIM cards through a private and secure virtual network. The new APN-as-a-Service allows data to be pooled across multiple mobile networks. This enables businesses to more effectively manage deployed mobile data…
Treepz (formerly Plentywaka), a Nigeria-based Mobility-as-a-Service platform, has acquired Ugabus, a Ugandan bus company that aggregates inter-city bus operators. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Treepz CEO and co-founder Onyeka Akumah told TechCrunch that the acquisition was funded with a recent $1.5 million raise that served as an extension to a previous…
Mecho Autotech, a Nigerian startup, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from venture capital firm Ingressive Capital in order to improve the quality and reliability of auto care services. Mecho, founded in 2019 and launched in April of this year, is a car technician matching platform that enables car owners to easily maintain and…
WhatsApp has rolled out new beta updates for both desktop and Android users. The desktop beta introduces new Privacy Settings for WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp for Desktop users. Privacy Settings have long been available on the WhatsApp app, and the feature has now been added to the desktop version as well. The desktop privacy settings…
El Salvador plans to build the world’s first “Bitcoin City,” initially funded by Bitcoin-backed bonds, President Nayib Bukele announced on Saturday, doubling down on his bet that the cryptocurrency will fuel investment in the Central American country. Speaking at the end of a week-long Bitcoin promotion in El Salvador, Bukele stated that the city planned…
Olarm, a home and business security startup, provides users with easy control over their alarm systems via its app. The Olarm app allows users to remotely view and control their alarm system from their smartphone, just like a traditional key panel, but it also includes additional features such as alarm status such as arming, disarming,…
A delegation from Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms recently visited Nigeria to inspect the depth of E-government implementation in Nigeria, which was developed and implemented with the assistance of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and to tour the level of infrastructure invested in achieving the heights Nigeria has achieved thus far….