Author: Staff Writer

Twitter marked its 1st week suspension anniversary in Nigeria by sharing a tweet on Twitter yesterday. According to the social media giant, Twitter said: “Today marks one week since Twitter was blocked in Nigeria. We have informed the Nigerian government that we are ready to meet for an open discussion…

South African pay TV company, Multichoice has increased its stake in Nigerian sports-betting company BetKing from 20% to 49% by paying R4.0 billion (USD281.5m). The acquisition is in line with Multichoice’s strategy to “expand its entertainment ecosystem and develop meaningful drivers of future value” and it was was done through Multichoice’s wholly-owned…

Nigeria’s leading transportation technology company, Plentywaka, and GUO Transport Services Limited, one of Nigeria’s largest transportation companies, with specialization in the interstate traveling industry, have today announced a partnership to further simplify the bus booking travel experience for Nigerians. This partnership would see both companies combine technology, and marketing, to…

Opera has launched Hype, an in-browser chat service for Opera Mini users, in Africa, specifically South Africa, Zambia and Ghana. Hype allows users easily set up an account and start chatting with secure end-to-end encryption. Users can browse the web, chat with friends, and share self-created memes, stickers and GIFs…

Facebook announced today that it would be upholding the suspension of Donald Trump’s accounts for two years effective from the date of the first suspension, January 7 2021. This announcement was made by Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs for Facebook in a blog post. “Given the gravity of the…

The Nigerian government has announced the suspension of Twitter operations in the country. The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, citing the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.…

Prosus, a global consumer internet group and the international Internet assets division of Naspers, announced that it is acquiring Stack Overflow, a leading knowledge-sharing platform for the global community of developers and technologists, for approximately US$1.8 billion. Founded in 2008 by co-founders Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, as an open…

Serial entrepreneur, founder of Farmcrowdy, Onyeka Akumah is stepping down as CEO of the company while co-founder Akindele Phillips takes over as the new CEO. This was announced by Onyeka Akumah today in a LinkedIn post. Mr. Akumah will however remain in the organisation as the Executive Chairman providing “the…

Fresh from raising $30 million in series B funding led by Ribbit Capital and Bezos Expeditions in November 2020, Chipper Cash announced that it has raised $100 million in a new Series C raise. In June 2020, Chipper Cash also raised $13.8 million Series A funding round led by Deciens Capital. With…

LifeQ, a South African independent provider of biometrics and health information startup announced that it has secured $47 million funding from top investors around the world. Founded by Laurence Olivier, CEO, and Dr. Franco du Preez, Chief Scientist, LifeQ provides biometrics and health insights derived from wearable devices, helping people…

When traveling the world, there is one thing you will always need to have on you: your ID. Going from city to city, country to country you will always need to have some form of proof of identification on you. This is both for safety reasons and so that any…

The Vodafone consortium consisting of Vodafone, Vodacom, Nairobi-based Safaricom Ltd., Sumitomo Corp.  and British development finance agency CDC Group has emerged as the winner of a new telecommunication license in Ethiopia. The Vodafone consortium’s bid of $850 million was accepted over MTN consortium’s bid of $600 million. Balcha Reba, director-general of…

Future Africa announced that it has invested a total of $3 million in 13 startups in the first five months of 2021. This brings total investments since inception to 47. As at the end of 2020, the company had made 33 investments totalling $2.1 million. The earliest limited partners that…

Nigeria’s finalist in the Seedstars World Competition 2020/21, Ladda lost out to Malaysian FinTech startup Finology. Finology, a startup that enables seamless access to financial products via the use of proprietary technology and digital distribution channels, emerged as the Global Winner of $500K in equity investment. The Seedstars competition, which…

Africa-focused payments giant Flutterwave has partnered with Amole, Ethiopia’s largest mobile Digital Wallet platform to make diaspora remittances easier for over 8million Ethiopians in Diaspora that remit over USD $5 billion annually to Ethiopia. Amole was created by Ethiopia’s Dashen Bank and payments platform Moneta Technologies in 2018. Amole offers…

Google unveiled the new Android 12 at its Google I/O event yesterday. This operating system is available in beta version on the following devices: Pixel 3, 3 XLPixel 3A, 3A XLPixel 4, 4 XLPixel 4A, 4A 5GPixel 5Asus Zenfone 8OnePlus 9, 9 ProOppo Find X3 Pro (model CPH2173)TCL 20 Pro 5GVivo…

One-month old Egyptian digital bank, Telda, announced that it has raised $5 million in a pre-seed round led by Sequoia Capital, Berlin-based Global Founders Capital (GFC);  and Class 5 Global. Founded in April by CEO Ahmed Sabbah and CTO Youssef Sholqamy, Telda is targeting the Gen Z in Egypt’s 100 million people. The…

Healthcare consulting firm, Salient Advisory, has launched a health care report calling on donor agencies, governments and impact investors to accelerate the impact and scale of African health-tech innovators working in supply chain. The report, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and titled, “Innovations in Health Product Distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa,” sets…

After a successful pilot of Chekkit’s drug verification solution in collaboration with blockchain partner, Fantom Foundation, the Afghanistan Ministry of Health has announced the rollout of the service nationally. The announcement was made on the 2nd of May 2021 at an event attended by a host of officials from the local government,…

Jane Manchun Wong, a Technology blogger and app researcher, is famous for uncovering new social media features before they launch. On Thursday, May 13th 2021, she shared on Twitter that the social media platform is planning to launch the new self-served Verification Request form next week.  I was told by multiple sources that…