LAGOS, 11 July 2022 — Response Architects, operators of ShopEX, has teamed up with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, under an exclusive agreement to launch an African livestream shopping platform, Penda, in major markets including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. Leveraging on the successful launch of ShopEX’s teleshopping model, Penda…
The race to roll out e-cash on the continent has heated up with Ghana becoming the latest African nation to start evaluating the sustainability of its central bank-backed digital currency, the eCedi. After Nigeria introduced the eNaira in October 2021, only South Africa and Ghana remain in the pilot stage of the process. A contactless…
Paymee, a fintech firm that provides an online payment gateway, has completed a six-figure fundraising round with P1 Ventures as the lead investor. The business will use the money to expand its enterprise offering and quicken the pace of product development. The start-up specializes on digitizing payment processes and providing card-based online payment acceptance solutions….
The second Afri-Plastics Challenge, which promotes eco-friendly ways to lessen our reliance on plastic trash, has announced its ten finalists. Thanks to financing from the Government of Canada, the Afri-Plastics Challenge, run by London-based innovation specialists Challenge Works, is combating the epidemic of plastic pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa. Each finalist will receive GBP75,000 (US$90,000) to…
To expand the reach of its auto-financing services in Francophone Africa, Nigeria-based auto-tech business Autochek has announced the acquisition of CoinAfrique, the top platform for classified ads in that continent. In order to improve and enable a seamless and secure automotive commerce experience throughout Africa, Autochek intends to develop digital solutions. By developing a single…
Kenya Power, a government-owned provider of energy, announced in March that it would begin offering fixed internet. As of the right moment, it has declared that its service would debut in June 2023. Business Daily reports that over the past few months, the state-owned electricity business has conducted pilot tests by offering the services to…
Every screen is going digital! This was demonstrated at the Eskimi CMO Masterclass on Wednesday, July 6, 2022 in Lagos (Nigeria); speakers, panelists, and participants unanimously agreed that brands in Nigeria must focus on the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) while embracing programmatic solutions to achieve their marketing goals. Eskimi is Nigeria’s largest programmatic platform;…
Binance, the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, is commemorating its fifth anniversary by waiving trading fees across a wide range of bitcoin spot trading pairs. From July 8, users will be able to trade fee-free on thirteen stablecoins and fiat combinations, including BTC/USDT, BTC/BUSD, BTC/USDC, BTC/EUR, BTC/TRY, and more, according to a…
Over the past few years, African countries have made great progress in improving traditional education outcomes. Today, the report has it that educational enrollment has reached 80%, and in most countries of the continent, basic education is free and guaranteed by the government. Albeit this development, modern-day incidents has reintroduced existing insubstantialities in Africa’s educational…
Apple has unveiled a new security mechanism designed to protect high-risk customers from cyberattacks such as malware. Lockdown Mode will soon be available on all iPhones, iPads, and Macs produced by the company with the next operating system. The option limits call from unknown users and disable certain functions. It comes after spyware was discovered…
Visa, the global leader in digital payments, is collaborating with Flocash FT, a fintech platform, to promote digital capabilities for African SMEs via digital payments, supplier solutions, and access to financial services. Flocash, which began operations in Kenya in 2013, is a leading provider of payment technology and processing services to consumers, businesses, and financial…
Grand Africa Initiative-GAIN and the Development Bank of Nigeria Plc (DBN) have announced a collaboration to train two hundred young Nigerian Women in an entrepreneurship course titled “GAIN Entrepreneurship Masterclass for Women (Nigeria)”, starting in July 2022. The course is designed to equip selected young women entrepreneurs from across the country with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills…
On Friday, July 8th, 2022, Eko Innovation Center, Eko Carbon, and Commodity will be collaborating with Generation Unlimited 9Ja to gather together Nigerian innovators for the first climate mitigation hackathon tagged EkoClimathon 1.0. Eko Innovation Centre is one of the leading tech hubs in Nigeria, curating events like Art of Technology Lagos, and The Lagos…
Aiponics, a Zambian Agritech startup, has announced the launch of Hrvst, a digital marketplace to provide customers and restaurants with easier access to local farm produce. Aiponics’ vision for Hrvst is to connect farmers and consumers in Africa, making it easy for them to obtain fresh farm produce without the use of a middleman. “With…
Following a successful pilot phase, AFEX, Nigeria’s commodities exchange and commodities market platform, has announced its expansion into Kenya. AFEX Fair Trade Limited (AFTL) has launched a $1 million loan program as part of the expansion to provide farmers with access to seed and fertilizer for their crops, thereby mitigating rising commodity prices. Under the…
Xend Finance, a Nigerian startup, has reached 100,000 users and announced expansions into Ghana and Kenya. Xend Finance, which participated in the Google Launchpad Africa accelerator and the Binance Incubation Programme in 2019, has created a platform that allows anyone to save and invest in stable currencies. The Xend Finance platform also enables users to…
The Innovate UK KTN Global Alliance Africa Global Alliance Innovation Exchange (iX) challenge is assisting a large agri-based manufacturing company in Kenya in identifying innovative solutions to two significant and immediate challenges that they face. Global Alliance Innovation Exchange is a KTN program of Innovate UK that was created to assist UK and international organizations…
The list of 100 technology startups chosen for the 2022 Technology Pioneers cohort has been released by the World Economic Forum (WEF). These six firms are from four nations in Africa: Nigeria (one), Kenya (three), Rwanda (one), and Cameroon (1). This year, Cameroon and Rwanda are added to the list for the first time. The…
The first UK office of Kora, an African payment infrastructure that provides payment API for payment collections and disbursements as well as cross-border transfers, has opened. Through the West Midlands Growth Company, an organization in charge of driving regional investment promotion and economic growth for the West Midlands and the UK, Kora collaborated with the…
In order to expand its service offerings throughout Kenya and East Africa, the Kenyan startup Duhqa, a B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods in FMCG, Cold Chain, and Pharmaceuticals, has closed a US$2 million Seed round. Participating in the investment round were CrosssFund, Roselake Ventures, and Mo Angels. Additionally, it included current investors…
As part of its post-funding continent-wide rollout, Nigerian fintech company Mono has expanded to Kenya. Mono is developing an open banking infrastructure that offers access to consumer financial data and bank payments for digital enterprises in Africa. Mono is an open banking infrastructure startup that was established in August 2020. Through its robust APIs, Mono…
TLcom Capital, a venture capital firm with an emphasis on Africa, has increased the pre-seed stage of its deal flow production while also beginning to focus on Egyptian ventures. In January 2022, TLcom, which was established in 1999 and has offices in Lagos, Nairobi, and London, announced the first closing of its US$150 million TIDE…
The Central African Republic’s (CAR) President, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, has introduced Sango Coin, the nation’s cryptocurrency. Yesterday, he announced it over a web event. The president of the nation provided ideas for using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies nationally at the “Sango Genesis Event.” The nation’s resources will be tokenized in order to increase investment prospects, even…
Jennifer Foltz is committed to supporting women in technology and business in Nigeria. She has several opportunities to accomplish precisely that in her role as the Deputy Public Affairs Officer of the United States Consulate General in Lagos. She gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her work with the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs in this…
A poorly identified backdoor application called “SessionManager” was set up as a malicious module within the Internet Information Services (IIS), a well-known web server created by Microsoft, according to experts at the Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky. Once it has spread, SessionManager makes a variety of harmful operations possible, from email collection to total command over…
One of the top mobile telco operator groups in Africa, Africell, just adopted Infobip’s Answers chatbot service. Infobip is a global cloud communications firm. More than 15 million users receive mobile network coverage and related technology services from Africell, a mobile network operator. Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia…
To work on cutting-edge and leading technologies, Amazon is seeking software development engineers of the highest caliber and experience. The project is crucial to Amazon’s future and will offer enormous personal fulfillment and professional advancement as the business takes on some of the most fascinating issues in software architecture design and creating highly scalable services….
On its way to Cape Town, South Africa, Google’s Equiano undersea internet cable, which aims to establish a maritime link between Europe and Africa, has made a new landing in Africa. The Equiano cable, according to a statement released yesterday, has finally arrived at Swakopmund, Namibia. The Equiano undersea cable, according to Paratus Group, one…
The free Digital Ad Expert program has been officially launched in Nigeria by Ad Dynamo by Aleph Group. The initiative, which has just announced an expansion throughout the nation, is intended to give young Nigerians the skills they need to succeed in digital marketing. Digital Ad Expert, a peer-to-peer learning program hosted on the exclusive…
Africa Data Hub is thrilled to announce recipients of the first cohort of the ADH Community Journalism Fellowship. The Africa Data Hub is a reputable and up-to-date source for COVID-19-related data on the African continent. It supports and promotes quality access to information, and data-driven journalism to facilitate evidence-based decision-making across the continent. The ADH Community…