Uhuru Investment Partners (Uhuru), a leading middle-market private equity firm based out of Lagos and Abidjan, has announced the first close of Uhuru Growth Fund I (UGF) at US$113 million, with capital support from CDC Group (“CDC”), the UK’s development finance institution (DFI), along with other DFI partners, commercial and…
Author: AdeO
More details are emerging about how Bill Gates and his wife of 27 years, Melinda Gates, are dividing up their wealthfollowing their divorce announcement. According to SEC filings, Bill gave Melinda, who he married in 1994, more than 14 million shares of the Canadian National Railway Company, as well as 2.9 million shares of…
Africa’s first social and video commerce platform, Rabawa, has raised $163,000 from Aptive Capital, a VC firm in the USA that is focused on supporting early-stage startups. RABAWA’s social and video commerce solution offer resellers the opportunity to leverage social media for curating, promoting, and selling products from Manufacturers / Distributors to end-users. The platform gives resellers…
WhatsApp payments are now available in Brazil again. The Facebook-owned chat service has relaunched the feature almost a year after it first went live in the country. Brazil served as the launching pad for WhatsApp’s mobile payments — it rolled out in India a few months later — but its central bank…
Mobile publishing platform, Carry1st has raised $6 million in a round of Series A funding. The round was led by venture capital firm Konvoy Ventures, with contributions from Riot Games, Raine Ventures, AET Fund, and TTV Capital. Carry1st will use the cash to scale its existing portfolio of games, and…
Asante Financial Services has been selected to join Mastercard Start Path, an award-winning startup engagement program. Asante is among a group of only 6 startups chosen from across the globe to join the newest class. Annually, Mastercard Start Path evaluates approximately 1,500 startups and less than 2% of those applications are accepted. The six-month program provides startups with operational support, commercial engagement…
Arrival, the global technology company creating electric vehicles using its game-changing technologies, is partnering with Uber to develop an affordable, purpose-built electric vehicle (EV) for ride-hailing drivers. The Arrival Car is expected to enter production in Q3 2023. The Arrival Car will address the global need to shift ride-hailing and…
Goodwell Investments, a pioneering impact investment firm, today announced the launch of Goodwell V. Following on from predecessor funds, Goodwell V aims to channel capital from private investors, family offices and foundations to fast-growing, scalable small and medium-sized companies. Goodwell V is the cornerstone feeder for a new institutional fund that the company plans to launch in…
MTN Nigeria has announced its unaudited results for the quarter ended 31 March 2021. The telecom firm stated that its mobile subscribers declined by 5 million to 71.5 million due to the effects of customer churn and the regulatory restrictions on new SIM sales and activations. Also, its active data users…
Google is offering scholarships to 40,000 African developers, through the launch of a new partnership with Pluralsight and Andela. It has also announced the opening of applications for the 6th Class of the Google Startups Accelerator programme for 17 countries including Nigeria. The announcements were made during a virtual event today, where Google…
Game-changing justice startups looking for the opportunity to take their business to new heights have until 30 April 2021 to enter the prestigious Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) Innovating Justice Challenge. Interested applicants can enter via www.hiil.org/innovating-justice-challenge. Successful candidates will earn a place in the prestigious international HiiL Justice Accelerator programme,…
Jumia, the leading eCommerce platform in Africa, has announced the appointment of Tolulope George-Yanwah as Ghana’s new Chief Executive Officer. She takes over the leadership mantle from former CEO, Diana Owusu-Kyereko. Previously, Tolulope was the Country Manager for Jumia Logistics in Nigeria from February 2017 to January 2021 and has…
Google Arts & Culture and the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) jointly launched a new project called ‘Eko for Show’. Since 2020, Google Arts & Culture has partnered with NTDC to accelerate the growth of domestic tourism in Nigeria and have now launched a platform to help visitors and users navigate…
Facebook has launched a new campaign themed ‘Facebook Creators’, a docuseries highlighting the inspiring stories of leading content creators in Nigeria and Ghana. The Facebook creators campaign will spotlight eight creative artists in Nigeria and Ghana who have built, communicated, and scaled their art and craft to the world using…
Lyft, Inc. announced today that the company has signed an agreement with Woven Planet Holdings, Inc., (“Woven Planet”), a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, for the acquisition of Lyft’s self-driving vehicle division, Level 5. The transaction also includes multi-year non-exclusive commercial agreements between Lyft and Woven Planet to accelerate the…
The informal vehicle marketplace in Nigeria is difficult to navigate. The difficulties that come with it include verifying the quality of a car, the legitimacy of a seller, and the lack of capital to make outright vehicle purchases. An expense of that nature can burn a hole right through an…
A new study from Juniper Research has found that the value of losses due to eCommerce fraud will rise this year, from $17.5 billion in 2020 to over $20 billion by 2021; a growth of 18% over a single year. The research found that fraudsters have targeted consumers as they have increased…
StartWeb Africa, a tech startup and website builder, has released drag and drop, a mobile-friendly website building tool. The platform which automates the entire website building process helps businesses and entrepreneurs reach a wider audience and increase sales. StartWeb Africa features an integrated solution with tools to help businesses (SMEs),…
Nigeria, according to the World Population Review, is estimated to have over 99 million adult population. On the flip side of this, the country, according to the Central Bank, has 43.6 million Bank Verification Numbers as of November 2020. From the foregoing, it can safely be deduced that over 56%…
WhatsApp is now testing a 24 hours option for disappearing messages on Android, iOS, and Web/ desktop. The instant messaging app already has an option that allows users to set a week’s (7 days) time for disappearing messages. With this option, if implemented, WhatsApp will now compete with rival apps…