All about Business.
Techstars, a global investment firm that provides early-stage entrepreneurs with access to capital, one-on-one mentorship, and customized programming, has launched the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator Program in collaboration with ARM Labs, a Lagos-based innovation program focused on assisting fintech startups. The new accelerator program will invest in early-stage African fintech and proptech companies. “Lagos…
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is the sole owner and operator of Twitter at the time of writing this article. The richest individual on the planet now owns the most popular social networking platform. Musk paid $54.20 per share for the company. This is, after all, the same price as his initial…
The idea of networking contributes to the growth and relevance of a startup. We are often familiar with the saying “no man is an island”. Running your business on a solo mode might retain the focus or vision of the business, it can also make progress speedily but it shuts the owner from the real experiences of other…
Paymob, an Egyptian digital payments company, has expanded its operations into Pakistan, with the goal of providing online, POS, and “Tap on Phone” payment options to Pakistani merchants. Paymob is an infrastructure technology enabler that provides payment solutions to empower digital financial service providers through mobile wallet technology. It was founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky,…
Leatherback, a cross-border payments network based in the United Kingdom, has received a $10 million Pre-Seed fundraising round from Zedcrest Capital, a major pan-African principal investment group. The funding will allow the growing Fintech company to focus on critical activities, including hiring strategic roles, elevation in its marketing and branding strategy, and traction and visibility…
Kudi, an African payment network, has rebranded as Nomba. This was announced in a press release as part of the company’s transition from a single payment platform to an omnichannel payment platform. Payment collections, trade finance, company reporting, and multiple location administration are among the new business capabilities produced by the new omni-channel payment platform,…
TeamApt, a Nigerian fintech startup, is relaunching its Moniepoint product as a business bank in order to provide a broader range of services to its customers. TeamApt was founded in 2015 to address inefficiencies in Nigeria’s growing digital financial services market, and it offers a variety of products. The startup’s customers include all of the…
Venture capital plays a “catalytic role” in innovation and fills a critical gap in the global financial and business landscape, but VCs must strike the right balance between assisting their portfolio companies and simply interfering once an investment has been made. According to VCs at Quona Capital, a venture firm focused on fintech in emerging…
Founded in January 2020 by Dady Maël and Kader Saka, PAL creates its own payment infrastructure for cash-in and cash-out to mobile wallets, without the need for a third-party technology component integration. It offers this service as an open API with a web interface that can be used for inbound remittance, payment, loans, and many financial…
Elloe is a first-of-its-kind AI-powered conversational commerce platform that allows SMEs to buy and sell products online across any messaging platform. It was founded by Owen Sakawa. Mad Ventures, located in the Philippines, led the US$1 million pre-seed fundraising round, which would help Elloe expand across Kenya and other emerging economies. “The opportunity to engage…
Customer satisfaction should be a business aim as it is vital to success for all brands. Customer satisfaction can be improved through user experience, which can have a favorable impact on your company’s return on investment (ROI). A happy customer is a satisfied customer. Customers that are dissatisfied with your service are less likely to return. From research,…
The most well-known use of blockchain is to facilitate the emergence of digital currency. But did you realize that this technology has a plethora of other uses? Many large organizations and government bodies use it to improve their current business processes. That isn’t to say that only established businesses can benefit from blockchain technology. It…
The Alexandria Angels Network, along with members of MED Angels and AUC Angels, Cubit Ventures, Challenge Fund, EdVentures, Falak Startups, and Cairo Angels, led a $1.2 million Series A fundraising round for Egypt-based edtech Sprints. “The organization has successfully given 20,000 learning sessions in the last two years.” Sprints’ co-founder and CEO, Ayman Bazraa, stated,…
Lemonade Finance, founded in 2020 by Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran and a participant in Y Combinator’s W21 batch last year, allows Africans living abroad to send and receive money from their home nations in a cost-effective, timely, and efficient manner. Its software lets users keep their balances in the currencies that are important to…
Visa, a global leader in digital payments, announced the opening of a new Innovation Studio in Nairobi, Kenya, today. Its first dedicated innovation site in Sub-Saharan Africa is the studio (SSA). This facility will service the Sub-Saharan Africa area, according to a news release, and will join Visa‘s network of innovation centers, which have been…
The term “Bootstrapping” is derived from the phrase “to hoist oneself up”. It is a method of starting one’s own business utilizing one’s own resources. A bootstrapped startup is a business that began and grew without the help of outside investors. Bootstrapping a business does not imply that the company will not seek outside funding. In fact,…
According to a 2021 research by web service provider Yahoo, the worldwide fintech sector is worth close to USD 7300 billion and is expected to increase at a rate of 26.87 percent year. The rapid growth of fintechs has been attributed to a rise in the popularity of digital payments, greater investments in technology-based solutions,…
SmartWage, an HR and communications technology business based in South Africa, has acquired US$2 million in a preliminary fundraising round that was oversubscribed to support its ambition of transforming Africa’s workforce through digital inclusion, particularly for frontline workers. SmartWage, which was founded in 2019, began by allowing businesses to provide their employees fast access to…
PayMint, an Egyptian fintech firm, has received a seven-figure US dollar seed investment to help it expand in its local market. PayMint, a financial technology company founded by Mohamed Yahya and Mohamed Rabie in 2019, offers SMEs salary payments, working capital finance, and supplier payments. The seed round, which was led by AUR Fintech, a…
Jumia, Africa’s first financial startup and now e-commerce behemoth, and UPS, the world’s largest shipping and receiving firm, have announced a new agreement that will allow UPS to utilise Jumia’s ‘last mile logistics’ capabilities and infrastructure to expand its delivery services in Africa. UPS will provide its clients an expanded choice of delivery solutions, including…
Swvl, Inc. (“Swvl”), a global provider of transformative tech-enabled mass transit solutions, and Moove, the world’s first mobility fintech, announced today a collaboration to scale Moove’s revenue-based vehicle financing model across the MENAP (Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan) region and expand vehicle classes to include electric buses. The collaboration comes on the heels of…
Strove, a South African employee wellness firm, is looking to expand further in Europe after debuting in the United Kingdom (UK). Strove, founded in 2020 by Chris Bruchhausen in collaboration with venture builder The Delta, is an activity-based mobile rewards program that enables businesses to urge their staff to live a healthy and active lifestyle,…
Khazna, an Egyptian financial super app that provides underprivileged consumers and micro-businesses with easy-to-use, technology-driven financial services, has received a Series A round of US$38 million in stock and debt to accelerate its expansion efforts. Khazna was launched in 2020 as an earned income access product, but it has since evolved into a multi-product that…
The GSMA has released its tenth annual ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money’ today. It reveals that mobile money adoption and use will continue to grow in 2021, with a record $1 trillion processed annually. The industry has seen a significant increase in the number of registered accounts, with an 18% increase since…
NowNow Digital Systems, a fintech founded by Sahir Berry in 2018 that provides payment gateways to merchants, announced Wednesday at a media event at its Lagos office that it is now ready to “put a face behind the brand” and expand to everyday Nigerians. American finance personnel, Matt Francis, who joined the company this year…
During the Annual Investment Conference in Johannesburg, Sandton on Thursday, Netflix, the US-based streaming giant, announced an investment of R900 million ($62 million) in South African film and television productions. According to Tech Central, the investment will cover four productions over the next two years, one international and three local. “These productions, which are just…
Gricd, a cold chain technology company that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable last-mile delivery of temperature-sensitive products, has partnered with Haultrac, one of Nigeria’s leading logistics companies, to support USAID’s delivery of essential healthcare commodities to all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. The collaboration is an indefinite quantity…
Following the launch of the Irish Tech Challenge South Africa, South African tech startups now have the opportunity to gain international exposure and access to global markets. The Irish Tech Challenge South Africa, a collaboration between the Irish Embassy in South Africa, the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), and…
Establishing a new business is not an easy feat as it cannot be compared with a prosperous one that has been in existence. Irrespective of the industry, every startup is likely to go through the same process of development except a variance in time. Subject to certain factors, the speed in growth of startup businesses differ…
The difficulties in Africa’s financial sector open up a plethora of opportunities. When one financial service issue is resolved, other layers reveal more issues to be resolved, much like a giant onion bulb. People were hurt by ridiculous bank charges when businesses found it difficult to receive payments online, but fintech companies came to the…