APPLY: $24,000 for grab at Seedstars Digital Democracy Hackathon The hackathon is for socially committed innovators, writes Joan Aimuengheuwa Leveraging technology and entrepreneurship to further its mission of impacting the lives of people in emerging markets, Swiss-based group, Seedstars, has launched the application for its hackathon. Themed “Digital Democracy Challenge”, the programme seeks innovative, low-cost, and viable…
e4 launches Girls in STEM programme Written By Yinka Okeowo Fintech specialist e4 has announced its ‘Girls in STEM’ programme to provide girls in underprivileged areas with the support they need to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) post matric. Cognisant of the gender imbalance present in the science and technology industries…
Arab Bank launches fintech-focused accelerator in Egypt Written By TOM JACKSON Arab Bank has launched its fintech-focused corporate accelerator programme “AB Accelerator” in Egypt, following its successful rollout in Jordan in 2018. The launch of this programme in Egypt comes as part of the bank’s strategic efforts to foster and support innovation in the fintech…
Disrupt Africa to again open-source annual funding report in partnership with key VC firms Written by TOM JACKSON Startup-focused news and research company Disrupt Africa has announced it is to once again make its flagship annual funding report free to all in an open-sourcing initiative made possible through a partnership with Africa-focused VC firms Novastar…
Zoom announces first startups receiving funding from $100M investment fund Written by Ron Miller For more than a year now, Zoom has been on a mission to transform from an application into a platform. To that end it made three announcements last year: Zoom Apps development tools, the Zoom Apps marketplace and a $100 million development fund to invest in some of…
Nigerian B2B marketplace Sabi raises round of seed funding as it hits 150k merchant mark Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian startup Sabi, a B2B marketplace serving Africa’s informal sector, has secured a seed funding round as it announces the milestone of over 150,000 small business users on its platform. In stealth mode since last year, Sabi is…
Ride-hailing startup Kai Senegal raises seed funding round Written by TOM JACKSON Ride-hailing service Kai Senegal has raised a round of seed funding from Mobility 54, the corporate venture capital arm of Toyota Tsusho Corporation, to help it scale. Founded in 2018, Kai Senegal is a technology-driven ride-hailing platform that connects customers to drivers via…
TikTok owner ByteDance buys a top virtual reality hardware startup Written by Lucas Matney TikTok parent company ByteDance seems to be looking to one-up Facebook anywhere it can. After taking over the mantle of the most downloaded social media app in the world with TikTok, ByteDance is coming for Facebook’s moonshot, buying up its own virtual…
Eyptian Startup,SWVL expands into Europe, Latin America, and others Swvl, an Egyptian mobility startup, has expanded into Europe, Latin America, and Asia through the acquisition of Shotl, a mass transit SaaS platform Swvl, an Egyptian startup that provides transformative mass transit and shared mobility solutions, has announced a definitive agreement to purchase a controlling interest…
TikTok and Shopify have teamed up to allow users to shop directly from the app Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce company, said that it is collaborating with TikTok on a feature that would allow users to buy directly from the social media app. For the first time ever, Shopify merchants with a TikTok business account will…
Unitel partners with Huawei to launch a mobile money service in Angola Unitel, an Angola-based mobile operator, has launched Unitel Money, a digital money service in the Central African country. The technology will be available in all of the country’s 18 provinces. Users will be able to make deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and payments using their…
AVCA to upskill Africa-focussed private capital professionals Written by Russel Ayugi The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association will establish an AVCA Training Academy to provide private investment professional development across the continent. As a first of its kind in the industry, the move is aims to support private investment professionals focussed on Africa through an…
Understanding the value and impact of Emerging Technologies Emerging technologies are those technologies that are at the beginning stages of development or are in their early stages, where they are beginning to emerge into popularity from obscurity. Emerging technologies are a class of new technological innovations that are being developed or will be developed over the…
Ghana basks in Twitter’s surprise choice as Africa HQ Written by Ijeoma Ndukwe He has worked in two of the continent’s most vibrant tech hubs, in Nigeria’s main city Lagos, he co-founded the Co-Creation Hub which then acquired Kenya’s iHub – another leading innovation centre. He thinks the proactiveness of Ghana’s president clearly played a…
Facebook Marketplace Rolls Out Across Sub-Saharan Africa Facebook has announced the launch of Marketplace to 37 countries and territories in Sub-Saharan Africa, including: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius,…
eSprayMe, revolutionary event management app, goes Live eSprayMe website and mobile application promises to revolutionize the world of event management through virtual conferencing. eSprayMe is a product of eSprayMe Incorporation, headquartered in Texas, USA, and invented by Nigerian-American Information Technology expert, Fisayo Olamigoke. The platform which went Live this weekend, was designed for event hosts and…
CryptoPunks blasts past $1 billion in lifetime sales as NFT speculation surges Written by Lucas Matney The big thing If I could, I would probably write about NFTs in this newsletter every week. I generally stop myself from actually doing so because I try my best to make this newsletter a snapshot of what’s important…
SA prop-tech startup Flow reports impressive growth with further investment on the horizon Written by TOM JACKSON South African prop-tech startup Flow is reporting impressive growth figures as it prepares to take on board further investment to supercharge its development. Founded by Daniel Levy and Gil Sperling, Flow goes straight to the source of the largest social…
This nasty new email scam tricks victims into calling the fraudsters Written by Sead Fadilpaši? No, you didn’t order three new iPhones Experts from security firm Kaspersky have warned of new waves of vishing (voice phishing) scams making the rounds that target users with extravagant purchase demands. The company says that as-yet-unknown criminals are impersonating well-known hardware…
Controversial WhatsApp Terms of Service Could Be Optional Soon Written by Furqan Shahid Remember the controversial terms of service that WhatsApp introduced earlier this year? For those who do not remember, the terms of service would mandate users to share their data with Facebook. Not accepting would have resulted in the functionality of the app being crippled, and…
The architect behind DC’s African American history museum will design 101 hospitals for Ghana Written by Uwagbale Edward-Ekpu David Adjaye, the British-Ghanaian architect best known for designing the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington DC, is helping Ghana give its healthcare system a massive face-lift. A design created by Adjaye Associates, the architect’s…
Samsung Is the Latest SSD Manufacturer Caught Cheating Its Customers Written by BeauHD Crucial and Western Digital have recently been caught swapping the TLC NAND used for certain products with inferior QLC NAND without updating product SKUs or informing reviewers of this change. Now, Samsung was caught doing something similar. Samsung is “swapping the drive controller +…
You Can Now Give Amazon More of Your Money in Monthly Installments Amazon is joining forces with buy-now-pay-later company Affirm, which will allow customers to split the total cost of purchases above $50 into monthly payments. Written By Jody Serrano Amazon wants you to buy, buy, buy, so it’s making it easier for you to do that. The company…
Windows 11 shouldn’t run on older PCs – but Microsoft won’t stop you from trying By John Loeffler When Microsoft announced its minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11 back in June, many were upset by the fact that only AMD Zen 2 and Intel eighth-gen processors or later would be supported. After an outcry, Microsoft hasn’t…
A $2 billion fintech startup has become Africa’s fastest unicorn Written By Alexander Onukwue In less than three years, OPay has gone from a curious startup known for its motorcycles in Lagos, Nigeria, to a financial services company worth $2 billion. The latest valuation comes after it raised $400 million from a round led by SoftBank,…
Kenyans lead the world in peer to peer crypto trade Written By Conrad Onyango Kenyans are trading cryptocurrencies directly with each other (“peer to peer transactions” or P2P) more than elsewhere in the world. Residents of other African countries are also jumping at the opportunity to cushion remittances and cross-border businesses from costly transfer fees and…
Work from Home Increased Worldwide Phishing Attacks Written By George Dascalu Palo Alto Network’s Unit 42 cybersecurity team reveals alarming findings about the new work-from-home environment. Over the course of September 2019 to April 2021, Palo Alto Network’s Unit 42 monitored firewall traffic and phishing sites detected by URL filters. The number of new phishing pages per week…
Nigerian startup launches crypto investment robo-advisor Written by TOM JACKSON Nigerian startup ComiBlock has launched a goal-based investing crypto robo-advisor, giving anyone with a smartphone access to planning tools, advice, curated and thematic crypto-portfolios. Launched in February, ComiBlock uses technology to help its users become better crypto investors. “We measure progress by helping our users achieve specific life…
Moroccan B2B e-commerce startup Chari.ma raises funding, acquires mobile credit platform Written by TOM JACKSON Chari.ma, a B2B e-commerce app allowing traditional proximity store owners in Morocco to order products and have them delivered, has closed a round of funding and announced the acquisition of mobile credit book application Karny.ma. Founded last year by husband…
This New Virus Attacks WhatsApp Users Be careful! This malware is downloaded with the unofficial version of “FM WhatsApp.” A new virus is affecting WhatsApp users who downloaded the unofficial version “FM WhatsApp.” Since WhatsApp is one of the most used applications to communicate worldwide, it is of high interest to cybercriminals since it is easy to steal…