Written by Michael Ajifowoke Owning a personal vehicle is of economic importance. Next to housing, transportation is often the second largest expenditure for the majority of urban households anywhere in the world. But insufficient purchasing power among middle-class Nigerians coupled with limited or no access to vehicle financing puts cars out of reach for over…
Written by Luis Monzon The way we communicate socially has changed, thanks to social media and mobile technology. For many, this has also translated to changes in the way we communicate professionally this digital world. Digital has removed the typical boundaries associated with geography and time zones, and people expect to be able to use…
Written by Natasha Mascarenhas When you’re in the mood for a pep talk, who better to turn to than a well-networked, optimistic mentor who is naturally in your corner? That friendly shoulder is the role that “Masters of Scale” wants to play. Inspired by LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman’s hit podcast, the new…
Written by TOM JACKSON Manufacturing tech leader Guidewheel, which began life as Safi in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, is targeting faster expansion in the United States (US) after raising Series A funding. Disrupt Africa reported in July Guidewheel, which was based out of Nairobi as Safi from 2018-2020, had closed a US$8 million Series A funding round. A…
Written by TOM JACKSON The Financial Times has partnered with Seedstars to host the first FTxSDG Challenge, aimed at empowering promising, impact-driven startups and entrepreneurs with learning and funding opportunities. The event will bring together early-stage startups from emerging markets and individual entrepreneurs to take part in the FTxSDG Challenge competition, with a focus on…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor In Nigeria, there are more than 40 million micro-businesses underserved in some form or another regarding banking services. Although some of these businesses have registered bank accounts, gaps exist in how banks use the data available to serve the needs of each business. With banks, presenting a series of transactions as statements is all these…
Written by Taylor Hatmaker Twitter is exploring ways to build a more visually immersive experience with its latest test, which brings edge-to-edge tweets to the app on iOS. Full-width images and videos track for the direction the company has shown some interest in going lately. Twitter introduced bigger images with improved cropping controls for its…
Written by TOM JACKSON Kenya-based energy leasing company Solarise Africa has secured EUR5 million (US$5.9 million) in debt financing from Swedish impact investment platform Trine to help it sustain its growth across the continent. Founded by Patrik Huber, Jan Albert Valk and Sakkie van Wijk, Solarise Africa is an energy leasing company for solar and other energy…
Written by Sarah Perez Microsoft today is introducing its own personalized news reading experience called Microsoft Start, available as both a website and mobile app, in addition to being integrated with other Microsoft products, including Windows 10 and 11 and its Microsoft Edge web browser. The feed will combine content from news publishers, but in a way…
Written by Kate Park PayPal Holdings, the U.S. fintech company, announced an acquisition of Paidy, a Japanese buy now, pay later (BNPL) service platform, for approximately $2.7 billion (300 billion yen), mostly in cash, to enhance its business in Japan. The transaction completion, including the regulatory approval, is expected in the fourth quarter of 2021. After the acquisition,…
Written By Luis Monzon Zip Australia has announced its intention to fully acquire South African buy now pay later (BNPL) fintech Payflex as part of its global expansion plans. With a presence in twelve markets across five continents, Zip plans to grow its South African business and expand into other African markets with sizable underbanked, digitally savvy…
Written by TOM JACKSON Egyptian fintech startup MNT-Halan has secured a US$120 million investment by major global and regional growth investors to further develop its product and expand internationally. Having begun life as a ride-hailing app for two- and three-wheeler vehicles back in 2018, MNT-Halan has morphed into a super app of sorts, and in the process…
Written by Luis Monzon UK-based mobile tech firm Africell announced yesterday that it was ending its operations in Uganda, where it has been unable to supersede its competitors in the country, namely local units of massive telecom firms such as South Africa’s MTN and India’s Airtel. “Africell … will end operations in Uganda on 7…
Written by Luis Monzon Samsung has announced that its newly launched Galaxy Z series is now available for pre-order in South Africa. The highly anticipated device series includes the foldable smartphones Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G. The South Korean tech juggernaut is also adding in some pre-order bonuses for its South…
Written By George Dascalu Microsoft Power Apps Suite’s default permissions are flawed In an unexpected data leak, more than 38 million records from 47 organizations using Microsoft’s gateway platform Power Apps were accidentally published online, according to The Hacker News. The unfortunate incident resulted in the leakage of sensitive information on servers of corporations such as Microsoft,…
Written by Michael Ajifowoke Within four years, Wave has gone from a spinoff from Asia and Africa-focused cheap remittance company, Sendwave, to a mobile money service provider worth $1.7 billion; the latest unicorn startup in Africa and the first in the French-speaking region. The billion-dollar valuation comes after it raised $200 million in a Series A round…
My co-founders and I launched Bridge Network earlier this year. We have a combined 12 years of experience working with some form of Blockchain and I dare say that we’re the right combination of experience and grit to make a case for Bridge network and its impact on the Blockchain economy. Bridge Network is a…
Written by TOM JACKSON Morocco-based startup Lacaisse, which offers a digital solution for the management of physical points of sale (POS), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding to help it scale. Founded in 2016 by Said Belkhayat and Rim Benboubker, Lacaisse has established a base of more than 250 points of sale in the Casablanca catering…
By Luis Monzon The mobile money service of Kenya’s largest telco has officially reached 50-million active users across Africa, according to an announcement by Safaricom. M-PESA is now, by the sheer size of its active user base, the most popular mobile money platform on the continent and the largest financial technology in Africa, according to TechWeez. The…
Endeavor Nigeria has unveiled the inaugural cohort of entrepreneurs for its new 10-week Endeavor ScaleUp Program that aims to support Nigeria’s most promising, high-impact business leaders. Leveraging Endeavor’s extensive global network, participating entrepreneurs will have access to mentorship, fundraising support, partnerships and a strong peer network of high impact entrepreneurs who have built and run successful…
Written by Tage Kene-Okafor Spanish on-demand delivery platform Glovo today announced plans to double its investment in Africa and expand its operations on the continent. The Barcelona-based company has invested up to €25 million ($30 million) by bringing its food delivery service to six African countries — Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria….
![Facebook Can Reportedly Access and Read Your WhatsApp Messages [UPDATED]](https://techtrends.africa/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/glen-carrie-ra4vJwxnvAo-unsplash-740x493-1.jpg "Facebook Can Reportedly Access and Read Your WhatsApp Messages [UPDATED] 26")
Written by Furqan Shahid [UPDATE] Just moments after the original story was published, Android Central reached out to WhatsApp regarding a comment, and this is what the spokesperson had to say. Every day WhatsApp protects over 100 billion messages with end-to-end encryption to help people communicate safely. We’ve built our service in a manner that limits the data…
The cryptocurrency market is more versatile than you’d think. Written by Laura van der Most If you’ve been out of the crypto game for a while, here’s what’s been happening: major cryptocurrencies are trading in the red, retirees protest El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, and Honduras opened its first cryptocurrency ATM. Basically, business as usual in…
Written by Doroteya Borisova Over a billion Android and Windows device users around the world have been discovered compromised by a new vulnerability. This particular weakness has been found in the Bluetooth chip firmware produced by a variety of SoC vendors, among which are Qualcomm, Silicon Labs, Intel, and others. According to MSPoweruser, so far, eleven vendors…
Sequoia Heritage, Stripe and others invest $200M in African fintech Wave at $1.7B valuation Written by Tage Kene-Okafor The largest Series A in Africa by a long shot is geared towards taking on telecom-led mobile money Francophone Africa has its first unicorn, and if you’ve been following tech on the continent, you will be very unsurprised…
Writteb by S. Dent The move is part of a greater privacy push by the Facebook-owned app. WhatsApp has come under fire of late for its privacy policies, but an upcoming update will actually give you a bit more control over your privacy settings, according to WaBetaInfo.com. Several years back, WhatsApp introduced new privacy settings that let you change…
Kenyan fintech startup Pezesha raises 7-figure seed extension round for African expansion Written by TOM JACKSON Kenyan fintech startup Pezesha, which is building scalable lending infrastructure for SMEs and institutions, has closed a seven-figure seed extension round as it looks to expand further across the continent. Founded in late 2016, Pezesha has created a holistic digital financial…
These open banking startups are driving the next wave of fintech innovation in Africa Written by TOM JACKSON All of a sudden, open banking is a very real phenomenon in Africa, with entrepreneurs and investors alike betting on the long-term opportunities within the nascent space. First of all, what is it? Open banking is a…
Enugu to host Nigeria’s latest StartupSouth conference Written by TOM JACKSON The Southeast Nigerian city of Enugu will host the sixth edition of the StartupSouth conference, the biggest startup and innovation-focused event in the South-South/South-East of Nigeria, in October. StartupSouth attracts founders, investors, public officials and top technology brands from across the region and beyond,…
The challenge for any organization in the world right now is to figure out how to maximize the efficiency of its operations using IoT technologies while reducing all possible risks, ideally, to zero, writes David Balaban; a computer security researcher. Let us take a look at potential IoT device connectivity issues in companies, review the…