Mono, an African startup that helps connect consumers’ bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $15 million Series A round, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. The round, led by Tiger Global — the VC firm’s third major investment in Africa this year after Flutterwave and FairMoney — also had participation from new investors Target Global (an investor…
WhatsApp is reportedly working on letting users pause voice recordings while they are being recorded, through a future update. The alleged update will let users pause and resume recording their voice message right from where they had paused. Furthermore, the instant messaging service is also reportedly working on fixing an issue with chat backups. A…
The world’s largest beer company, AB InBev, has partnered Hindsight Ventures to launch the Beer Garage Africa Innovation Challenge, which will offer startups access to venture development and grant funding. AB InBev, which has over 500 brands and over six million B2B customers in over 100 countries, launched Beer Garage a few years ago with…
Product Management (PM) in general seems to have a different job description depending on the company. Some focus more on project management skills, some focus on UX skills — but the core of the position seems to be the same: the glue between business development, product development, and the users. However, every industry has its…
Welcoming investors to join the 8th edition of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit #AESIS2021 online and offline on 4 – 5 November 2021. VC4A and the African Business Angel Network (ABAN) are pleased to announce the 8th edition of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit (#AESIS2021) which will take place online and offline from…
America since long has dominated the world of start-ups along with buzzing activities in venture capital. However, now the craze of the start-up has increased and many cities of different continents including Asia, Europe and Africa have created many promising cities that are ideal for starting a start-up. Even though the Coronavirus impacted the startup…
Over and above leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services; it has been widely acknowledged that the key building block for true digital transformation is the need for businesses to become data-driven. Of course, this is a uniquely challenging task for almost every business. Dealing with the Data Challenge At the core of any data…
The Nigerian federal government has, within the last 12 months, enacted a series of bans and restrictions across a country that has one of the most vibrant tech ecosystems in Africa. Africa’s most populous country has a booming tech industry and was the incubator for 4 of the 5 unicorn startups in Africa, all of which have…
Cryptocurrency remittances are a lifeline for Afghans after the abrupt U.S. withdrawal led to Western Union temporarily ceasing operations and banks in the country severely limiting withdrawals. As regulators in remittance source countries like the U.S. and U.K. turn their sights on crypto, they should remember how indispensable those currencies are to some of the…
Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic created catastrophic effects in our communities, educational systems and, most importantly, our careers and overall global economy. The pandemic has also had a disproportionate effect on women’s careers: We are 1.8 times more likely to be laid off than men. It is also important to note that the pandemic caused a…
Deadline: 11 October, 2021 The University of Cape Town (UCT) Graduate School of Business (GSB) Solution Space, in partnership with Ayoba, has opened applications for the Cohort Five of the E-Track Programme. The programme serves as a platform for corporate partners to engage and collaborate on specific research and development agendas. Designed to support individuals…
MarketForce, the Kenya-based B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods and digital financial services, has made Nigeria its first port of expansion in the wake of its funding round. Co-founded in 2018 by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti, MarketForce is a B2B retail marketplace that empowers informal merchants in Africa to source, order and pay for…
Google has opened applications for the third edition of its Startups Accelerator: Middle East and North Africa programme, which offers startups access to mentorship and support from Google experts. The three-month digital programme, which kicks off in January of next year, is targeting seed to Series A tech startups. Twelve companies just graduated from the second…
Ride-hailing company, Uber has announced the expansion of its services to two new cities in Nigeria, Port Harcourt and Ibadan. With this move, Uber’s services will now be available in five cities including Lagos, Abuja and Benin City. According to Uber, the move is intended to unlock growth opportunities in the cities for drivers who…
Made up of 250 top private companies leveraging technology to solve challenges in the financial services industry, CB Insights has unveiled the fourth annual Fintech 250. The Fintech 250 includes the most promising fintech companies from around the world, operating in capital markets, insurance, digital banking and wealth management. Companies in this year’s cohort have…
A new regional director, in the person of Catherine Chinedum (‘ChiChi’) Aniagolu-Okoye, has been appointed to take charge of the West African office of Ford Foundation based in Lagos State. Before the appointment of Aniagolu-Okoye, the position was served by the late Innocent Chukwuma from 2013 to 2021. During his tenure, he helped Ford Foundation build its…
Sub-Saharan Africa venture firm Pacer Ventures is set to further unlock the power of digital transformation in Africa with the launch of Pacer Labs, a software development firm born to support the African digital ecosystem and the growth of forward-looking organisations by harnessing the power of advanced technologies. Projections indicate that Africa will be the world’s next tech talent…
US-based tech monolith Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, has announced its plans to invest $1-billion over 5 years to accelerate and support digital transformation across Africa through a series of new initiatives, from faster internet to backing startups. The announcements were first made during yesterday’s first-ever Google for Africa virtual event, which can be…
Designing websites came naturally to Onyeka Akumah even as a college student, but his greatest epiphany was in a moving bus in Lagos. Today, his bus-hailing solution is going places. What do you get when you have a mother who wants you to make all the money in the world and a father who wants…
Google announced Thursday that it would no longer allow ads or monetization for content that promotes climate change denialism. The policy change will apply to publishers, advertisers and YouTube creators, who will no longer be able to make money from content that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” Google plans to…
Ghanaian startup Kaazi has launched the public beta of its football talent identification and recruitment platform, which will be available to all football players in Africa. Founded in July by Nana Yaw Oppong-Mensah, a former football player, coach and scout, Kaazi is a web-based platform that allows football players to build their own profiles by adding videos…
Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest lenders, has announced the launch of the Nedbank DigiSkills online platform, in partnership with Microsoft and Afrika Tikkun. The DigiSkills Online platform seeks to help South Africans acquire the in-demand skills needed in a more digital post-COVID-19 economy. The initiative initially aims to upskill and create sustainable income opportunities…
EMURGO – the official commercial arm and a founding entity of the Cardano blockchain – previously announced the launch of a new wholly-owned Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle to invest into early startup and growth stage companies focused on building socially impactful solutions powered by Cardano, through two separate entities with distinct visions, EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures. EMURGO Africa announced today…
Facebook today announced the winners of the 2021 Facebook Community Accelerator Program, highlighting the 13 Facebook community leaders from Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya who will receive training, mentorship and up to $50,000 USD in funds to invest in an initiative that extends their community’s positive impact. The 13 winners emerged out of over 13,000 applicants…
With Africa’s startup ecosystem worth put at $6.6 billion, over 90 per cent of these funds are currently concentrated in five cities including Cape Town, Lagos, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Accra. This is one of the key findings in the latest Global Start-up Ecosystem Report 2021 (GSER 2021), compiled by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network….
If you’ve ever tweeted something innocuous that went on to kick off a firestorm of unwanted attention, you know full well that people on Twitter will fight about anything and everything — it’s the internet’s premier destination for high-speed, low-information opinion slinging, after all. Twitter has been working on ways to tone down the toxicity…
WhatsApp for Android is in testing a profile photo privacy setting that will let users hide their profile photos from specific contacts, according to a report. The custom privacy setting may come alongside the existing options to let you show your profile photo to everyone, all contacts, and nobody. The change is said to be…
Huawei’s, annual flagship event for the global ICT industry – HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 – kicked off on Sep 23, 2021. Eric Xu, Huawei rotating chairman, opened the event with a keynote speech titled “Innovating Nonstop for Faster Digitalization”. This year’s event, themed “Dive into Digital”, explores how digital technology can better integrate with business scenarios…
African Development Partners III Fund (ADP III) has surpassed its US$800 million target and is set to close at US$900 million, with an additional US$250 million in dedicated co-investment capital, according to Development Partners International, a premier investment firm focused on Africa. This takes the total amount invested on the continent to US$1.15 billion. ADP…
According to Keith Kalyegira, Chief Executive Officer of the Capital Markets Authority, the initial public offering (IPO) of telecommunications company MTN Uganda is expected to raise approximately $1.2 billion. MTN Uganda has previously announced that it had received approval to float 20% of its stock. MTN Uganda intends to launch an initial public offering (IPO) and list on…