Author: Staff Writer

Applications are now open for the 2022 MEST Africa Challenge. The 2022 MEST Africa Challenge is inviting pre-seed and seed stage technology startups from Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, and South Africa to contest for a chance to raise USD 50,000 in funding, among other prizes. MAC presents a unique opportunity…

Snapchat, the popular instant messaging service, has introduced a new feature called Family Center which allows parents “get more insight into who their teens are friends with on Snapchat, and who they have been communicating with, without revealing any of the substance of those conversations.” According to the company in…

Convertedin, an Egyptian e-commerce startup, announced that it has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Merak Capital, a Saudi Arabian headquartered company. Other participants in the seed round include 500 Global and MSAS Founded in 2019 by CEO Mohamed Fergany, Mohamed Atef and Mustafa Raslan, Convertedin is a marketing operating…

Ever sent an WhatsApp message and wished that you still have a longer time to “unsend” it? Well WhatsApp just announced a new feature where you now have a little over two days to delete a “sent” message instead of just one hour. We were already expecting this new feature…

It seems that Elon Musk is not ready to wait for the court to decide the fate of his withdrawal to buy Twitter. The sensational tech billionaire want to take the fight to the streets. He wants the public to decide. He made this known in a tweet to his…

A Nigerian Energy Tech company, Beacon Power Services, announced that it has closed $2.7m seed round led by by Seedstars Africa Ventures with participation from Persistent Energy, Factor[e], Kepple Africa Ventures, and Oridun Capital Management. Launched in 2014 by Bimbola Adisa, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Beacon Power Services (BPS) provides data and grid management solutions…

Mdundo.com, an African music streaming business, announced that it crossed the 20 million subscriber milestone in June 2022. The biggest country for the Kenyan based company was Nigeria with a total of 4.9m monthly users, followed by South Africa with 3.7m and Tanzania with 2.4m. Launched in 2013, Mdundo, had about…

Instagram announced that it is expanding NFT support to more people in 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas. This means that more people, creators, businesses and collectors will be able to share digital collectibles they created or own. The NFT sharing on Instagram was initially only available to select…

Amazon Prime video has launched a localised version of its service in Nigeria. The streaming giant announced this in a tweet on a new Amazon Prime Naija account recently. This is a significant development in the video streaming scene in Nigeria as it aims to compete with the likes of…

Good financial management is one of the most vital skills that every young adult needs to have. Unfortunately, such a skill is generally not taught in most school curriculums. Often, financial literacy is associated instead with either the virtue of self-taught resourcefulness or the idea that the skill of being…

Y Combinator, a technology startup accelerator, cut the number of startups in its summer class to 250 from 414 in its previous winter class. According to The Information, this was in response to a downturn in the economy and in venture capital funding. Remember, in May 2022, the startup accelerator…

One of the most popular games of the new age, The Cycle Frontier, is a loot-focused extraction shooter game with exciting PvE and PvP elements. The dangerous lush forests of the planet Fortuna III make it even harder for players to survive, but one cannot deny the thrill you get…

The Central Bank of Kenya has ordered all financial institutions in Kenya to stop dealing with Flutterwave and Chipper Cash because “they are operating without licensing and authorisation by CBK.” According to Matu Mugo, CBK’s deputy director of bank supervision in the circular, “It has come to the attention of…

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) announced that Umba has bought 66.6% stake in Daraja, a Kenyan deposit-taking microfinance bank effective July 1, 2022. The acquisition follows requisite approvals by CBK and the National Treasury in May and June respectively. This acquisition comes after it raised $15 million in a…

Qwili, a South Africa based startup, announced that it has raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by a South African venture capital firm named E4E Africa. Other participants in the funding round include Strat-Tech, Next Chymia, Untapped Global and Codec Ventures and angels like Ashwin Ravichandran and…

The Nigeria Startup Bill passed its third reading at the lower house of the country’s parliament, the House of Representatives yesterday 27th of July 2022. This follows the passage of the same bill by the Senate on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. This was announced via the Twitter page of the…

Spacefinish, a Nigerian innovative workspace solutions company, announced that it has been selected to design and build Twitter’s head office in Ghana. Though Twitter did not build its head office in Nigeria, a Nigerian company was called upon to design and build the office. As you might remember this raised…

Dropshipping is a method of selling products without ever owning the inventory. This is a retail fulfillment method in which eCommerce merchants have the products they sell pass through a third-party’s warehouse. This means they do not have to keep physical inventory but instead can rely on shipments from manufacturers…

Namibia now has an operational bitcoin Automated Teller Machine (ATM) at Maerua Mall in Windhoek via the Crypto Kiosk. With the Crypto kiosk, this will afford the Namibian residents the ability to convert the two world’s largest cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to the Namibian Dollar. A bitcoin…

Standard Chartered Bank in Nigeria has issued a statement notifying its customers that International transactions on the Naira Debit card will be suspended as from August 1, 2022. According to the bank in its statement, “Kindly be informed that effective August 1, 2022, International spend on our Naira Visa Debit…