Centum Investment Company Plc has agreed to sell its entire equity stake in Sidian Bank Limited (‘Sidian’) to Access Bank Plc for KES4.3 billion. Centum owns 83.4 percent of Sidian’s issued shares, both directly and indirectly through Bakki Holdco Limited, its wholly-owned subsidiary. Sidian is planned to be merged with Access Bank’s Kenyan unit in…
The 13 startups from East and West Africa selected to participate in the Scaleup Accelerator Programme have been revealed by GreenHouse Capital and Microsoft. Microsoft and GreenHouse Labs teamed up earlier this year to develop a pre-Series A accelerator program for entrepreneurs aiming to expand into new markets. The six-week program attempts to connect startups…
Talently, an edtech startup, has raised $3 million in seed funding from 500 Startups Latam, Alaya Capital, Salkantay Ventures, Newtype Ventures, Potencia Ventures, Latin Leap, and others. Talently is a firm that develops tech talent and links it with global organizations through an online job marketplace. Since the epidemic began, the company has grown 50…
(8 June 2022, Johannesburg) The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), an entity of the Department of Science and Innovation, and the SAB Foundation have announced a partnership to promote social entrepreneurship development in South Africa. The SAB Foundation describes social entrepreneurship as business solutions to social problems. The partnership will see TIA and SAB Foundation co-investing…
The British Council and Microsoft have established an e-learning program to help young entrepreneurs shape their futures and take control of their livelihoods. #BossupInAfrica, a program for young people aged 18 to 25, was created in 2021 to assist them scale up their talents. The curriculum is divided into three modules, each featuring a variety…
DisrupTech Ventures sponsored a $1 million pre-Seed investment round for Egypt-based insurtech Nice Deer. The cash will be used to extend the company’s offerings, such as providing health insurance options for small businesses. Nice Deer was created in early 2022 and is based in Egypt. Its goal is to close the gap between health-care providers,…
OXFORD June 8, 2022 – Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, today released the “Active Adversary Playbook 2022,” detailing attacker behaviors that Sophos’ Rapid Response team saw in the wild in 2021. The findings show a 36% increase in dwell time, with a median intruder dwell time of 15 days in 2021 versus 11 days…
The Norrsken Impact Accelerator, a well-known early-stage accelerator, has picked nine African startups from eight countries to participate in its second round. The accelerator is one of the Norrsken Foundation’s programs. Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of Swedish fintech unicorn Klarna, founded the organization in 2016 to assist entrepreneurs around the world in addressing some of the…
Africa Data Centres, a subsidiary of Cassava Technologies Group, a pan-African technology conglomerate, is constructing a 30-megawatt data center in Accra, Ghana. With facilities in Nigeria, Togo, and now Ghana, the new facility will pave the way for the company’s hyper-scale partners to expand digital services and solutions to more nations in West Africa, making…
Dstny, a Belgian corporate communications provider, has acquired Egyptian startup Tactful AI, which provides a cutting-edge intelligent customer experience platform. Tactful is a unified customer experience platform that provides businesses with a single dashboard through which to manage, engage, augment, and understand customers’ experiences across numerous touch points. It was founded by Mohamed Elmasry, Mohammad…
PayFast, a South African internet payment gateway, has partnered with Heavy Chef’s entrepreneur education non-profit, the Heavy Chef Foundation, to offer a 12-week development program. The new program aims to equip budding entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills they need to launch their own e-commerce businesses. More than 42% of growing South African entrepreneurs, according…
Paul Edwards, the former CEO of MTN Group, has raised a series-A round of capital for his new fintech business VantagePay. According to TechCentral, Crossfin Holdings, a Blue Garnet Ventures affiliate, has purchased a “significant share” in the company for an unknown value. VantagePay, formerly Vantage Africa Limited, was founded in 2018 with the mission…
Sendy, a Nairobi-based software firm that develops fulfillment solutions for e-commerce and consumer brands, has teamed up with Google to launch the “Google Hustle Academy program,” which aims to boost Africa’s small and medium companies. The boot camp program is expected to deliver expert training on business strategy and development, digital marketing, and financial planning…
Indicina, which is focused on developing API-driven credit infrastructure for Africa, raised $3 million in a Seed round to help the company maintain its commitment to the credit value chain. Greycroft and RV Ventures also participated in this round, which was led by Target Global. Ricardo Schaefer, a Partner at Target Global, will also be…
Rentoza, a South African subscription-based online electronics and appliance retailer, has raised ZAR20 million (US$1.3 million) in capital from Khulisani Ventures, the Mineworkers Investment Company’s early-stage investment firm (MIC). Last July, Johannesburg-based MIC announced the creation of MIC Khulisani Ventures, a ZAR150 million (US$10 million) early-stage investment entity aimed at black-owned, high-growth enterprises in South…
LAGOS, 1 June 2022 — ShopEX, a multi-channel retail business based in Nigeria and exclusive distributors of some of the world’s most successful ‘As Seen On TV’ products has raised a pre seed funding of $400,000 from Cape Town venture capital firm, HAVAÍC. The investment forms part of a US$635,000 convertible notes round alongside existing angel investors,…
Kendi Ntwiga has been named Global Head of Misrepresentation of Meta owners of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp after her departure from Microsoft Kenya, where she served as Country Leader. Her appointment began in May, and she will be stationed in Ireland. Kendi will strive to push for operational processes to scale Meta’s enforcement of community…
HyperPay, a fintech business based in Saudi Arabia, has raised $36.7 million in a fundraising round led by Mastercard, with Amwal Capital Partners and AB Ventures as investors. HyperPay, founded by Muhannad Ebwini, provides a wide range of products and services to merchants in addition to payment processing, including risk and fraud management, monitoring, instalment…
Instagram, which is owned by Meta, is having difficulties sleeping, so it’s borrowing a page from TikTok and increasing the duration limit for Reels. TikTok’s duration limit was recently increased, with new options ranging from 60 seconds to 5 minutes and 10 minutes. Instagram is following after and will soon allow users to publish Reels…
Through its early-stage tech investment company Naspers Foundry, Naspers has led a $2.5 million investment in LifeCheq, a fintech platform that enables financial advisers to provide quality, complete financial advice. Since its debut in 2018, LifeCheq has provided financial planning and help to over 45,000 people in South Africa. LifeCheq’s AI-powered platform can help financial…
The Kenya Development Corporation (KDC) has teamed up with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) to help the manufacturing sector’s small and medium-sized businesses recover. KDC revealed that it has initiated a plan to engage SMEs countrywide to sensitize them on KDC’s products and services in order to understand their financial needs during the engagement,…
The cost of cybercrime on Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to be $4.1 billion by 2021, according to Kenyan cybersecurity startup Serianu. Throughout the Covid-19 issue, the region has been badly struck, with threat actors taking advantage of weak networks and insufficient cybersecurity policies in several countries. “We are noticing a rise in…
Kemi is a co-founder of Babymigo, a Nigerian femtech firm created in 2017 with the goal of increasing access to high-quality pregnancy and parenting information. It works by providing a digital platform via which prospective, pregnant, and nursing moms can connect with peers and specialists, as well as locate local health and social resources. Overall,…
Vantage Health Technologies and the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) have joined to build an AI-enabled Patient Retention Solution, which has resulted in a breakthrough and renewed hope for patient retention in the region. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 25 million – or 67 percent – of all HIV-positive people, with 8.1 million of…
Appetito, an on-demand grocery retail company based in Cairo that delivers food to customers from a small network of dark stores, announced the acquisition of Lamma, a similar company based in Rabat and the Greater Tunis area of Morocco and Tunisia, on Tuesday. The purchase is slated to finalize in the third quarter of 2022,…
Talk360, an international calling app that allows users to make dependable and economical calls to any landline or mobile phone in the globe, has raised $4 million in preparation for the launch of a new pan-African payment platform in mid-2022. Leading African venture capital investor HAVAC, 4Di Capital, and numerous famous fintech angel investors led…
Following successful operations in 17 locations throughout the world, Grubtech, a leading tech and cloud kitchens management solutions company located in the United Arab Emirates, has announced plans to open operations in Cairo, Egypt. Grubtech, the winner of the best food technologies platform award in 2021, has appointed Osama Harfoush as its national manager, who…
The Upbeat centre in Admiralty Way, Lekki, Lagos, was packed with children on Saturday, May 28. It wasn’t simply because it was a weekend, either. CashBox, a digital savings platform that encourages people to “make saving a habit,” gathered children to debut its newest feature, KidsBox. The app’s new function was created to teach kids…
Digital Africa is a mission-driven effort funded by the French government with the goal of assisting African tech entrepreneurs and innovators by offering technical assistance, financing projects and enterprises, and establishing a regulatory climate that encourages African innovation. Digital Africa has expanded to a community of 6,000 African entrepreneurs across multiple sectors since its debut…
The African Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Ghana has signed a Masters Sponsored Research Agreement (MSRA) with Google Research, with the goal of pushing scientific research forward in fields such as artificial intelligence. As part of their continued commitment to collaborate and improve computing and technology in Africa, the agreement aims to strengthen the collaboration…