Author: Staff Writer

Nigerian startup Global Air Drone Academy (GADA) emerged as the winner of the grand prize of £20,000 in the first ‘African Drone Business Challenge’, hosted by the African Drone Forum (ADF) in Rwanda. Founded by Nigerian Eno Umoh and American Austin Brown, Global Air Drone Academy is a non-profit drone…

Nigeria’s Connected Analytics (ThankUCash) is the only African company in 500 Startups’ 26th batch of startups. The full list was released by Aaron Blumenthal of 500 startups today. This group of 29 companies was chosen from over 3,000 applicants, representing a less than 1% acceptance rate. Founded in 2018, Connected…

Today is Tuesday, the 11th of February 2020 and it is another opportunity for Samsung to unveil its latest arsenal in the smartphone ammunition. Samsung had officially announced the date for the next big smartphone launch event on the 6th of January, 2020. It is Samsung Unpacked event happening live…

Introducing the launch of the third edition of #Africa4Future, a joint accelerator program between Airbus’ global aerospace accelerator, BizLab and Make-IT in Africa, a programme by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit German (GIZ), the German agency for International Cooperation. First launched in 2017, the #Africa4Future initiative was created by…

Nigerian fintech start-up, Aella has raised a $10m debt financing round, from HQ Financial Group (HQF), Singapore-based private company specializing in new material science, semiconductor and blockchain financial investments. This is Aella’s second raise and it is aimed at bolstering the company’s commitment to serve the underbanked population in West…

SunFunder, a solar finance company providing debt capital to solar enterprises in emerging markets, has made its first disbursement in Nigeria, part of a facility of up to $4m with commercial and industrial (C&I) solar developer, Daystar Power. SunfFunder has deployed more than $85m to nearly 50 solar companies since 2012.…

Instagram has now introduced two new features – “Who you interact with the least” and “which Instagram accounts show up in your feed the most” The “Least Interacted With” list shows you the list of people you interacted with the least in the last 90 days, such as liking their…

Are you a Data Scientist, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence expert, GIS expert, Data Analyst, UX/UI Designer and/or Software developer? CcHUB in partnership with the WorldBank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is hosting the Data4Governance Challenge. The event is a 3-day design for development hackathon scheduled to hold…

Google Maps is celebrating its 15 years in existence by unveiling a new look and new features. The new look app comes with five easy-to-access tabs: Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute and Updates. Explore: Looking for a place nearby to grab lunch, enjoy live music or play arcade games? In the…

Fresh from raising N23 billion through the issuance of a 23 billion Naira Series 1 Fixed Rate Senior Unsecured Callable Bond and getting $200 million investment from Payments giant Visa, Nigerian-based payments giant, Interswitch has listed its N23 billion bond on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Interswitch says that the N23…

Founders Factory Africa (FFA) announced today that they have accepted five new startups into their Venture Scale programme, kicking off on 3 February 2020. The venture development company, along with its corporate investors Standard Bank and Netcare, are excited to welcome LocumBase (South Africa), Bwala Africa (Kenya), Akili Labs (South…

South African social content startup, Over, announced that it has been acquired by Internet domain registrar and web hosting company, GoDaddy for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2012, Over is the company behind the popular Over app that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses grow their brands by easily creating impactful…

Imagine developing the business plan for your bike-hailing service and you wake up one morning and find out you are no longer to operate on major highways in one of the most populous cities in Nigeria. This is what faced the management of bike-hailing startups in Nigeria – OPay, Max.ng,…

Leading tech giant, Samsung, unveiled three Value–Packed Devices into the Nigerian market. They are the Galaxy A71, Galaxy A51 and Galaxy Note10 Lite. Dudu Mokholo, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Central Africa reiterated Samsung’s focus on innovation for all – “We are committed to bridging the gap between flagship features and…

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) has become the first person to hit the 200 million mark on Instagram. The football maestro achieved this milestone yesterday and posted a comment to celebrate this….. “Wow 200 million!!! Thank you to each and every one of you for sharing this journey with me…

Pieter de Villiers, Founder of Clickatell and Tinashe Ruzane Co-founder of FlexClub are the latest South African entrepreneurs to join the prestigious global network and did so during Endeavor’s 92nd International Selection Panel (ISP) held in Riviera Maya, Mexico in December. Clickatell provides a chat commerce platform that enables brands…

One of the former co-founders of Vine, a short-form video hosting service, Dom Hoffman, has just launched a new short form video app named Byte. Byte lets you shoot or upload and then share six-second videos. Will it be as successful as Vine with competition from the likes of TikTok…

Tech giant, Google, has opened its first African Google Developers space in Lagos, Nigeria. “This space, in addition to housing our Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa programme, will be used for developer training and meetings, innovation, research and startup programs, as well as carrying out our commitment to empowering people through…

It is a sad day for ride-hailing startups in Lagos state as the state government has banned commercial motorcycles and tricycles from operating along major highways in the state. The state government has proscribed their operations in 6 Local Government Areas (LGAs), 9 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) and 10…

Grammy award winning musician, Wyclef Jean, has raised $25 million to fund music publishing services in Africa, the Caribbean and other developing regions through his newest venture Carnival World Music Group. Carnival World provides artists with music publishing and distribution resources needed to promote their music and earn royalties. According…