Author: Staff Writer

DPO Group, a leading Payment Service Provider (PSP) in Africa, has just launched Africa’s first business to business payment card. DPO’s DumaCard, which is offered as a plastic card as well as in virtual form, is available initially to its 10,000 business customers in Kenya and Tanzania, with plans to…

AfriLabs; the largest Pan- African network of technology and innovation centres has added 27 new hubs into her network thereby extending her reach into 6 countries; Guinea, Mauritius, South Sudan, Libya, Tunisia and Botswana and 12 new cities making it a total of 158 Hubs in 45 African Countries. In…

Cairo-based transportation startup Swvl has announced that it will be launching in Lagos, Nigeria by mid-July. The startup is currently seeking to recruit a Country Manager to kick-start the operations. In a conversation with Menabytes, Swvl will be launching with 50 buses initially. This will be the third country that the…

Velocity Capital recently today the launch of its €105M FinTech Ventures Fund dedicated to backing early stage FinTech companies that advance how people, businesses, and financial institutions grow economic opportunity. “At Velocity, we are interested in funding founders who demonstrate a vision for applying FinTech to improve the human experience,…

Africa-focused investment firm, Helios Investment Partners and the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund (“EAEF”) through their investment manager Lorax Capital Partners (“LCP”) have announced the acquisition of 96.7% of Misr Hytech Seed International, a leading breeder and producer of proprietary agricultural seeds in Egypt, and one of the Middle East and Africa’s…

China has named the four companies to receive 5G commercial licenses. They are three network operators — China Telecom, China Mobile,  China Unicom — and one cable network company, China Broadcasting Network. This announcement was made some days ago by the country’s telecoms authority, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. 5G is the…

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, NEC Corporation, and Simprints Technology Ltd. have signed a memorandum of understanding on the use of biometrics to improve immunisation coverage in developing countries. Despite enormous progress over the past two decades, there are still approximately 20 million children who do not receive a basic course…

The German government has started a 1 Billion EURO Africa fund to support African startups and SMEs as well as German and European companies. This announcement was made by the German Ambassador to Ghana, Christoph Retzlaff recently on Twitter. https://twitter.com/GermanAmbGhana/status/1135863223125782528 According to him, this is the German government delivering G20 Compact…

Chinese electronics giant, Xiaomi, has announced that it would be unveiling a new member of the Mi-series, Mi 9T, on the 12th of June. It is ‘T’ variant of the Mi 9 series. The company unveiled its Mi 9 flagship smartphone back in February this year. This was done via a tweet…

Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar company, Azuri Technologies, has raised $26 million in a funding round to expand its operations across Africa. The Cambridge based company has provided solar systems to over 150,000 systems to off-grid uses in sub-saharan Africa since 2012. It already provides the PAYG energy products to people in Nigeria,…

Apple recently unveiled its new Apple Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. And I must say the Mac Pro is an absolute beauty. The hardware was introduced at Apple WWDC event that took place on the 3rd of June. This is first refresh since 2013. Jocularly, it looks like a…

Lucy Quist, former CEO of Airtel Ghana, has been appointed the Managing Director and Head of Change Leadership at American multinational investment bank and financial services company, Morgan Stanley, United Kingdom. As CEO of Airtel Ghana (now AirtelTigo), she helped to reposition the company into one of the fastest growing…

Whether it is YouTube, Netflix, Facebook or your local or regional provider, streaming a video has never been easier and accessible. YouTube alone, more than 500 million hours of video are being watched every single day and out of 3 billion people on the internet, 81% of them watch videos.…

Smartphone maker Tecno Mobile has unveiled a new phone from its Pouvoir series known for its huge battery capacity – the Pouvoir 3. The Pouvoir 3 has a 5000 mAH battery which is said to give users four days of usage with a single charge and up to 43 hours…

The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a report on the investigation of the recent allegations against board members of OANDO Plc, a company listed on the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges. The report directed that the Group CEO, Wale Tinubu and the deputy, Mr. Omamofe Boyo resign from…

May 31 2019 signals the last day of the once famous Blackberry Messenger. There was once a time when the Blackberry Messenger was the unique selling point (USP) for Blackberry owners and it was the only messaging app available. Emtek, the company now behind the app, announced this last month that…

A Boston-based company, American Tower, has acquired pan-African Tower company, Eaton Towers for $1.85 billion. Eaton Towers, founded by Terry Rhodes in 2009, owns 5,500 towers in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Niger, which it leases back to carriers including Orange, Tigo, Vodacom and MTN. Eaton Towers co-founder and…

Google has extended its speed limit, speed cameras and mobile speed cameras features to over 40 countries globally including  African countries namely Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. The other countries include Australia, Brazil, U.S., Canada, U.K., India, Mexico, Russia, Japan, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Greece,…

Internet and eCommerce giant, Naspers, has announced that it would be listing a new global consumer internet group (NewCo) comprising its international internet assets on the Euronext Amsterdam on Wednesday 17 July 2019, along with a secondary, inward listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. Naspers expects to own…

London based Helios Investment Partners is planning to raise a fund of about $1.25 billion to invest across Africa. According to Bloomberg, the Africa focused company is already in talks with asset managers and development agencies. The company, which manages about $3.6 billion, closed a $1.1 billion Africa-focused fund in 2015 after…