Clickatell, a Cape Town-based and California-based fintech firm, CPaaS innovator, and creator of the Chat Commerce platform, announced yesterday that it had raised $91 million in its latest Series C round of funding. Arrowroot Capital led this round, with Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Endeavor Global, and Harvest also participating. According to a press release, Clickatell…
Three African startups have been chosen to participate in the 12th edition of the SOSV MOX accelerator, where they will receive up to $150,000 in funding and tailored support. SOSV invests in 150 companies each year through category-leading startup development programs, providing multi-stage investment to develop and scale big ideas for positive change. MOX is…
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has revealed that it has selected the name JAMAICA DIGITAL EXCHANGE – JAM-DEX, as well as the tagline “No cash, no problem!” and logo for its digital currency, which will be launched later this year. The choices for the digital currency’s branding came as a result of a public competition…
Canza Finance, an emerging markets neobank that is building the world’s largest non-institutional-based financial system, announced the completion of its $3.27M seed round. The fundraising round was led by Fenbushi Capital, with participation from Dominance Ventures, Bixin Ventures, Consensys, Protocol Labs, Emergo Ventures, MEXC Global, NGC Ventures, XanPool, Hashkey, the founders of Celo, and others. This funding enables Canza to continue headcount growth and expand its service…
Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) is the country’s busiest international airport, with approximately 3 million international passengers passing through each year. When arriving passengers arrive at the airport, they must pass through the doors depicted above in order to proceed to immigration. A lone sign above it reads “Welcome to Nigeria.” Airports, particularly international ones,…
Today, Meta, a tech and social media touchstone based in the United States, announced the expansion of the availability of its Facebook Reels for iOS and Android to more than 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The “Reels” feature debuted on Meta’s Instagram platform in 2020 in response to the rising popularity of then-newcomer TikTok. Reels…
Bizzyn, a Tanzanian startup, has launched a full-featured business and financial management suite of products designed to scale as businesses grow. Bizzyn, which was founded in 2019 by Emmanuel Kimaro and Abbasi Mussa, officially began operations in November of last year. The startup has created a financial and marketing platform for SMEs that monitors finance,…
Launched as Kazi in 2017, when the market was still in its infancy, Kenyan startup Ziada returned after a hiatus in 2021, and saw rapid adoption of its platform, which helps informal sector service providers access more work opportunities. Annabel Angwenyi and Patrick Ngugi have been business partners for over a decade, but their two…
Lipa Payments, a South African fintech startup, has raised R10 million ($659 thousand) in funding from Empowerment Capital’s Imvelo Ventures, which is backed by Capitec Bank SA. Lipa Payments was a finalist in Capitec Bank’s 2020 Life 2.0 Hackathon. With its software solution that allows merchants to accept contactless payments directly from a mobile phone,…
Twitter may be testing a way for users who do not want to be tagged to untag themselves from a thread. The Verge obtained a screenshot of a new “leave this conversation” feature, which untags your username from a Twitter conversation, preventing people from mentioning you in the conversation again and stopping you from receiving…
The latest Westerwelle Young Founders Programme, which offers outstanding young entrepreneurs from developing and emerging countries six months of business mentoring and the opportunity to attend the Young Founder Conference in Berlin, is now accepting applications. The Westerwelle Foundation for International Understanding fosters global collaboration among young entrepreneurs, executives, and decision-makers. Its Young Founders Programme…
For the past five years, the Norrsken Foundation in Sweden has helped social tech entrepreneurs in Africa and elsewhere solve societal and environmental challenges by investing financially in their ideas. In one of its most recent ventures, the nonprofit is constructing the largest startup hub in East Africa in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. The Norrsken House…
According to Bloomberg, the CDC Group, the United Kingdom’s development-finance arm, will provide a $100 million credit facility to First Bank of Nigeria Ltd. to help support women-owned businesses and small businesses in Africa’s largest economy. The funding will “address the challenge of limited access to capital faced by the country’s under-banked and underserved groups,”…
Atlantica Ventures, an African tech startup fund, has received $11.3 million in junior funding from Boost Africa and $12.5 million in senior financing from the European Investment Bank. Aniko Szigetvari and Ik Kanu founded Atlantica Ventures, an early-stage pan-African impact-focused venture capital fund, on the premise that African entrepreneurs channeling their passion and expertise through…
For an organization or individual, social media offers a plethora of opportunities to promote and expand a brand. Social media, a powerful form of communication that uses the internet, can provide any organization with a strong global presence. Most businesses believe they need a social media presence because these platforms and apps have billions of…
JPMorgan, the world’s largest bank, has become the first financial institution to enter the metaverse. Customers will be able to visit the bank’s Onyx lounge in the blockchain-based virtual world decentraland. The Onyx Lounge offers Ethereum-based services to JPMorgan customers, which are all detailed in a recently published report. The bank has issued reports on…
MarketForce, a Nairobi-based B2B platform for consumer goods retail distribution and digital financial services in Africa, has closed a $40 million Series A funding round, the largest of its kind in East and Central Africa. The funding comes seven months after the company closed on a pre-Series A round. The round was led by V8…
BlackPay, a South African fintech startup, describes itself as a “no-frills, non-banking” multi-product platform that promotes financial inclusion for economically active but marginalized communities. BlackPay, founded in 2017, operates a multi-product and multi-party platform that simplifies origination services in lending products and financial services. Using its developed alternative credit scoring technology, the startup has created…
The Africa Tech Summit has announced the final shortlist of startups that will pitch live on stage to delegates at the sold-out Africa Tech Summit, which will take place this week in Nairobi on February 23rd and 24th. Pitch Live has received over 300 submissions and aims to showcase leading startup ventures from across the…
Truth Social, Donald Trump’s new social media platform, is set to launch gradually this week and should be “fully operational” by late March, potentially raising the former president’s profile more than a year after he was banned from major social media platforms. “We will begin to roll out to people on the Apple App store…
Zomato has reiterated its focus on the quick-commerce segment and announced an additional $400 million investment in the space over the next two years. The company also expanded to 180 new cities, bringing its total presence in India to over 700. Zomato’s adjusted revenue — a combination of revenue from operations and customer delivery charges…
Technology that merges the virtual and physical worlds could become a reality for consumers in a few years, according to Facebook owner Meta Platforms, who provided more details on its vision for the creation of the metaverse. A person wearing an MR headset may be able to use a real-world object to trigger a virtual-world…
Snapchat launched Temporary Live Location on Friday, allowing users to share their current location with friends. The new feature, which is now available to all Snapchat users worldwide, will allow users to share their real-time whereabouts with friends to let them know when they are on their way to meet up or when they are…
The Nigeria Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, formally handed over the 3.5HZ spectrum of the fifth-generation (5G) network to the Nigeria Communications Commission on Thursday, February 17, 2022, at an event held at the Hilton Hotel in Abuja (NCC). “We are here today to officially allocate the 3.5GHz frequency band, specifically 3.52GHz…
Flutterwave, a Nigerian fintech unicorn, has unveiled new product offerings and features for individuals, business owners, and developers just two days after raising $250 million in Series D funding. This announcement was made on the company’s official social media accounts. Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola stated in a video announcement that Flutterwave is opening up a…
Snapchat users will soon be able to change their usernames on the photo- and video-sharing platform. Beginning February 23, the much-anticipated functionality will be available on both Android and iOS devices. Snapchat users can now delete their original usernames without having to create an entirely new account. The company confirmed that changing users’ usernames will…
Freterium, a Moroccan startup, has received $4 million in seed funding to help it grow and serve more businesses in Africa and the Middle East. Partech led the round, which also included Y Combinator (Freterium was a part of the S21 cohort), Flexport, CDG Invest, Swiss Founders Fund, Outlierz Ventures, and business angels from the…
Wasla, an Egyptian ecommerce startup, has received a $9 million investment from Contact Financial Holding, the country’s largest non-bank financial services provider. Contact will invest up to $9 million in Wasla’s product rollout and regional expansion, with the goal of realizing the startup’s vision of enabling e-commerce, payments, and credit for a broad audience in…
Twitter has added a pinned conversations feature to its Direct Messages (DM) service for iOS, Android, and the Web, allowing users to pin conversations to the top of their inbox. Even if newer messages from other chats arrive, pinning conversations keeps them at the top of the chat list. The feature was previously available as…
FSD Africa and Nigeria’s National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) have collaborated to launch BimaLab, an accelerator program designed to accelerate the development and adoption of digital insurance solutions. BimaLab Nigeria’s mission is to fill gaps in the insurance market by educating, nurturing, and promoting innovators and insurtech startups. The program will draw on Kenya’s BimaLab I…