South Africa’s Naspers has announced that it would sell 2% of its shares in China’s Tencent Holdings to strengthen their balance sheet and to accelerate growth. The media/tech giant, however, added that it will not sell more shares for at least the next three years. The 2% the company is…
Author: AdeO
Africa’s largest e-commerce company Jumia has announced the launch of Jumia One, a new Android all-in-one lifestyle App that allows customers to conduct all online transactions – such as, Airtime recharge, DSTV & Electricity payments, and access all Jumia services – on just a single App. While making the announcement…
Nigeria’s eCommerce startup, Konga, has appointed Olusiji Ijogun as its chairman with effect from April 1, 2018. Mr Ijogun was a former top executive of UAC. Zinox which recently acquired Konga described Ijogun in a statement as a seasoned and widely experienced technocrat with over three decades of top-notch performance in…
Nigerian startup LifeBank has been selected to participate in Merck Accelerator programme in Darmstadt, Germany. LifeBank was chosen along with 10 startups from different parts of the world by Merck. The chosen startups will receive mentoring and coaching from a network comprised of over 50,000 experts from 66 countries, as…
One of Kenya’s leading digital payment Bitpesa has launched in Ghana. The fintech startup already has an office and staff in Lagos, Nigeria. The fintech startup will now offer new currency pairs, allowing Ghanaians to make GHS payments that settle in more than ten currencies, including NGN, UGX, and ZAR.…
Merck in partnership with Mettā is inviting applications from East African Startups for its Nairobi, Merck Accelerator’s satellite program in Nairobi. The accelerator whose applications close on May 5 will see selected startups attending a 4-day Bootcamp at Mettā, Nairobi that will culminate with a pitch event to explore and validate the potential for co-creating and…
Black Panther has broken another record and this time it is a Twitter record. The political thriller now has the title of being the most tweeted about movie of all-time. The record was previously held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but now the Marvel movie has relegated it to second place…
An ATM pharmacy that gives patients with chronic illnesses their repeat medication has been launched in Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Pharmacy Dispensing Unit (PDU) is the first of its kind in Africa and was developed by a team of experts from Right to Care and Right ePharmacy- in collaboration…
Rocket Internet is planning to divest from African online shopping platform Jumia, people according to a report by Reuters. Rocket Internet, which supported the company in 2012, is seeking an exit from the consumer electronics and fashion retailer, in line with its strategy of selling or listing established internet firms.…
A recent report on the Nigerian Mobile Sector by Africa’s leading e-commerce company Jumia has revealed an 11% increase in the number of Nigerians who visited the Jumia Website via their mobile phones – 79% in 2017 versus 71% in 2016. Meanwhile, those who used their desktop computers or laptops dipped to…
From Google to Uber and other car companies, they are all in a rat race to get autonomous or self-driving cars on the road. However, from reports, it seems there is still quite a long way to go before we get the perfect self-driving vehicle. We hear that a 49-year-old…
Google has revealed the startups that will participate in the first Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa class. In all, 12 startups were selected. The search giant announced the first Launchpad Accelerator Africa class on 9 November and applications closed on 10 December 2017. Launchpad Accelerator Africa is a programme for top early-stage African startups…
Buying and selling of music beats were unimaginable in the past. Artists have to physically visit studios to produce their beat. But today, this is not the case. You can now buy and sell beats online. And the startup that is making this possible is Caketunes. Innovation Village caught with…
Visa has announced that its Visa’s Everywhere Initiative, a global innovation program that tasks start-ups to solve commerce challenges of tomorrow and further enhance their own product propositions and provide visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners, will expand into the Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) region. Entrants in the…
Google plans to ban online advertisements promoting cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings starting in June. This is part of a huge plan on the marketing and advertising of high-risk financial products. Scott Spencer, Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, said in a blog post on that the company has “updated several policies…
The Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) in partnership with the NEPAD Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SANBio) are looking for ambitious female leaders in bioscience-based businesses who would like to grow their businesses through an accelerator programme and gain regional exposure and access to international markets. Selected Bioscience-owned…
2,000 units of Redmi 5A Prime sold in 10 minutes. Asian mobile giant Xiaomi has arrived with a bang in Nigeria, launching last week, exclusively on e-commerce platform Jumia, its two best-seller phones, the Redmi Note 5A and Redmi Note 5A Prime at introductory prices of ₦34,590 and ₦45,890 respectively.…
Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. So, if you an entrepreneur and you are yet to fathom how an accelerator can contribute to your business, below are some helpful points that may give you more insight.…
The biggest Digital music streaming service in the world Spotify has finally launched in South Africa as it lays to groundwork to enter into other African markets. The company said: “With over 159 million active users, including over 71 million Spotify Premium subscribers, Spotify offers a choice between an ongoing free…
WhatsApp has extended the time limit for deleting sent messages to over an hour. The WhatsApp “delete for everyone” feature was first introduced in October previously allowed users to delete messages 8 minutes and 32 seconds after it has been sent. However, with the latest update, the messaging app which has…