A cryptocurrency trading platform has been launched by Neobank Be Mobile Africa, a neobank that offers affordable banking services to people and businesses in 30 countries across Africa. This platform will allow people in South Africa to purchase and trade cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL), as well as USD stablecoins like…
According to Paula Ingabire, minister of ICT and innovation, nearly 3,000 schools without an internet connection will have it by 2024 thanks to funding from the World Bank and China Exim Bank. Ingabire revealed the information last week while responding to questions on the ICT industry at a plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies….
Sendmarc, a leading provider of email and domain security based in South Africa, has raised US$7 million in a Series A fundraising round to grow its market enablement approach and advance its solution. Sendmarc protects customers’ email domains and keeps an eye out for attempted abuse to help them avoid email impersonation, such as phishing…
Triggering Exponential Climate Action (TECA), a company that launches climate resilience ventures, has chosen seven entrepreneurs to receive US$55,000 in funding each to develop their ideas for the blue economy in Africa. The TECA initiative was established to hasten the creation of climate-resilient solutions to safeguard and sustain the environment and vulnerable populations. It is…
Fashion items are among the most popular, if not the most popular, on many e-commerce platforms. In Africa, for example, fashion has consistently been the most popular category of items sold on Jumia. This means that there is no shortage of demand for fashion items across the continent, and supply is increasing even in higher-end…
Opera is expanding its sidebar with a ChatGPT-powered tool that generates brief summaries of webpages and articles. You can activate the feature by selecting the “shorten” button to the right of the address bar, as shown in a demo included in Opera’s blog post. From there, a ChatGPT sidebar will appear on the left, generating…
Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, today released details of two expansive, still operational, pig butchering or sha zhu pan rings (elaborate and lengthy financial fraud scams that can cost victims thousands of dollars) that scammers are operating from Asia. One of the rings, based in Hong Kong, involves a fake…
Infopercept Consulting Pvt Ltd, a global cybersecurity solutions and services company, today announced the appointment of Jitendra Bulani as Chief Marketing Officer. Bulani brings 15 years of global marketing experience at cybersecurity companies. He will be responsible for driving awareness and demand for Infopercept’s offensive security, defensive security and security compliance solutions as well as…
The Nigeria’s Top 50 Digital Economy Enablers 2023 holds this week in Lagos February 14, 2023 at the prestigious Providence Hotel in Ikeja GRA, Lagos. “The Top 50 honours corporate entities and individuals, who embody the struggle, profound insights, stamina, infectious optimism and triumph in the extremely challenging but rewarding Nigeria’s digital economy sector. The…
Today, Microsoft announced new AI-powered classroom tools. As children prepare for an increasingly technologically advanced world, the company believes that its new “Learning Accelerators” will help them improve their speaking and math skills while also making teachers’ jobs easier. Speaker Progress is a new artificial intelligence (AI) classroom tool for teachers. It saves time by…
Digital file-sharing service WeTransfer is partnering with blockchain platform Minima to launch non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the network, allowing users to generate NFTs directly from their phones. A layer 1 blockchain and peer-to-peer network designed specifically for mobile use is called Minima. Its website states that individuals will be able to “operate a full constructing…
The “digital pound,” often known as “Bitcoin,” a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the UK, will “likely” materialize. A consultation document from the Treasury and the Bank of England makes the case for the establishment of a state-backed digital pound, or CBDC. The number of persons who routinely use cash has significantly decreased since…
Yodawy, a pharmacy benefits platform established in 2018 with the goal of restructuring Egypt’s drug supply chain, has secured $16 million in a Series B financing to support its expansion beyond the Middle East and Africa. With the help of Yodawy’s platform, insurance firms and hospitals may streamline approvals, reduce expenses, and enhance customer satisfaction….
After a presentation of its brand-new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, raised worries that the tech titan has fallen behind in the contest for the foreseeable future of internet search, Alphabet Inc. had its biggest one-day decline in more than three months. Since the unveiling of developer OpenAI’s enormously well-liked chatbot, ChatGPT, which many in the…
Nigerian blockchain payments firm Bingtellar has announced the availability of its quick crypto-to-fiat conversion service, allowing individuals and organizations to buy, sell, and receive payments in local money with ease. Bingtellar, founded in 2021, enables real-time conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat and offers users rapid liquidity in their home currency. With a typical transaction time…
The largest Africa-focused fund to date, Partech Africa II has reached its first close at €245 million (about $263 million), according to the international venture capital firm. According to managing partners Tidjane Deme and Cyril Collon, the company, which focuses on early- and growth-stage entrepreneurs throughout the continent, aimed to raise roughly €230 million ($250…
In order to grow across the continent, Umba, a digital bank for emerging countries that has only previously operated in Nigeria, has begun operations there. Umba is a digital bank created specifically for Africa with the goal of expanding financial services to the continent’s sizable untapped market. The startup wants to make it simpler for…
Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions have become increasingly popular over the past several years, and it is predicted that the industry will expand at a 12.5% compound annual growth rate and reach $145.79 billion in the next six years. This expansion is partly related to the rise in online retailers employing CRM solutions to raise…
The largest fiber optic cable in the world, 2Africa, has arrived in Amanzimtoti, south of Durban. The 45,000 km cable, which is still under construction, will follow the seafloors of the Mediterranean, Red, and Indian seas, as well as the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The historic initiative, which will go into effect in May 2022,…
In spring 2023, the ThinkYoung Coding School, which operates coding schools for teenagers and young people in Kenya in collaboration with Boeing, plans to expand to Rwanda and Ethiopia with the goal of empowering teens and young people throughout Africa. The interactive curriculum of ThinkYoung’s bootcamp program includes coding techniques applicable to the aviation sector,…
Alphabet, the company that owns Google, plans to compete with Microsoft by introducing a chatbot service and more artificial intelligence for its search engine and developers. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday that the business is launching a conversational AI service called Bard to gather user input before going live…
With the help of a partnership with a financial solutions provider based in Dubai, Cellulant, Africa’s leading provider of payment solutions, has made it possible for expats to conveniently recharge airtime for their dependents across Africa. Through KrosPayz, Money Q’s pan-African digital payments platform that enables online payment for purchases and value-added services at the…
In 2022, funding for the African digital startup ecosystem crossed the US$3 billion threshold for the first time, and the industry overcame challenges from the global economy to have a record-breaking year. This is supported by the eighth edition of the yearly African Tech Startups Funding Report, which was published by startup news and research…
A Kenyan business called eWAKA that seeks to enhance sustainable mobility has received strategic investment from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of the Swiss Confederation. The SECO Start-up Fund has given eWAKA a $540,000 loan to support its 2023 ambitions to accelerate a growth strategy centered on providing innovative and sustainable mobility technologies…
The AYuTe Africa Challenge has identified three African agri-tech firms as winners. These companies, ThriveAgric of Nigeria, DigicCow of Kenya, and Brastorne Enterprises of Botswana, will each get US$1.5 million in grant cash and access to professional advisors. The AYuTe Africa Challenge, run by Heifer International, supports agri-tech innovators on the continent and is a…
Lulalend, a digital business lender based in Cape Town, South Africa, raised $35 million in a Series B funding round that was led by Lightrock, a global impact investor. Other investors included the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Quona Capital, and newcomers DEG, Triodos Investment Management, and Women’s World Banking Asset Management. Lulalend plans to utilize…
The owner of ChatGPT OpenAI said on Wednesday that it is introducing a $20 per month test subscription plan for its well-known AI-powered chatbot, named ChatGPT Plus. Subscribers will have priority access to new features and enhancements, access to ChatGPT during peak hours, and quicker responses. The business announced ChatGPT Plus, which will initially be…
The three-year GrindstoneX accelerator program, which seeks to empower female entrepreneurs while generating jobs, has chosen ten South African firms. Disrupt Africa announced in October that Grindstone Accelerator, based in South Africa, has teamed up with Naspers Labs to introduce GrindstoneX, a new all-female accelerator programme aimed at enhancing the investability, scalability, and exit-readiness of…
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in conjunction with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), recently introduced the card scheme known as AFRIGO. In order to enable cardholders to use their payment cards to make purchases and access cash at businesses around the world, payment networks and financial institutions form a system known as a card scheme. The…
Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, today released new findings on CryptoRom scams—elaborate financial fraud schemes that prey on and trick dating app users into making fake cryptocurrency investments—in its latest report, “Fraudulent Trading Apps Sneak into Apple and Google App Stores.” The report details the first fake CryptoRom apps —Ace Pro and MBM_BitScan—…