The Vatican through a strategic partnership with tech company Sensorium is making its way into the metaverse. The move is aimed at developing an NFT-gallery accessible through VR and desktop of the Vatican’s collection, which appeals to about six million in-person visitors a year. Works in the collection include those…
Author: Oluwasegun Olukotun
Sanlam, the largest non-banking financial services company in Africa, and Allianz, one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers have agreed to combine their current and future operations across Africa to create the largest Pan-African non-banking financial services entity on the continent. With this collaboration, customers across Africa will…
Norebase, the African trade technology company building a single platform for businesses to start, scale and operate in any African country, has secured $1M pre-seed funding round, co-led by Samurai Incubate and Consonance Investment. Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad) and Kinfolk VC also invested in this fundraise. The round also included participation…
Online marketplace for freelance services, Fiverr, today announced the launch of AI Auditions, a powerful new tool allowing voiceover artists the opportunity to “audition” for roles without having to read a single sentence from a script. For customers, it provides simple, easy access to automated and personalized voiceover samples for all…
World football’s governing body, FIFA, has teamed up with blockchain technology company Algorand to agree a sponsorship and technical partnership deal. The agreement means Algorand will become the official blockchain platform of FIFA and provide the official blockchain-supported wallet solution. As per the sponsorship agreement, Algorand will be a FIFA…
VivaTech has partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to launch the first edition of the AfricaTech Awards, which will take place at VivaTech in June 2022. The initiative aims to help create new market opportunities for emerging startups with great impact potential in Africa, catalyzing support and inspiring action from investors, policymakers,…
Having scaled regulatory screenings and following approval from relevant authorities, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc (HFMP) has announced that Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) has acquired a 71.69% stake in HFMP from three entities related to Honeywell Group and the transaction has now been consummated. This means that HFMP is…
The Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), a Development Financial Institution owned by the Government of Denmark has committed a €4.5 million investment in the new Spark+ Africa fund for clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa. The new fund, Spark+ Africa Fund, will aim investments at the health and climate challenges…
Nigeria’s solar energy provider westa.solar has secured €1.5 million in mezzanine debt to expand its business in Nigeria. The company obtained the loan from the African and Austrian Investment Fund for SMEs (AAIF). Westa.solar will deploy the fund into boosting its operations in Nigeria. The Lagos-based company finances and installs…
African streaming service, Showmax, has added a feature Max Data Saving Mode giving its subscribers, even more, control over how much data they use at 50MB per hour. This is currently available within the iOS mobile version of the Showmax app and will be rolled out to Android app users…
In commemoration of Africa Day 2022 set for May 25, Netflix is celebrating African stories and storytellers through a new collection titled ‘From Cape to Cairo’. There’s plenty that’s unique about Africa from being the world’s hottest continent to being home to more than 1.2 billion people spread over 54…
Power Learn Project, a Pan African impact organization announced today the launch of its flagship program One Million Developers for Africa” Scholarship Program (#1MillionDevs4Africa) to train 1 million young people and empower them with tech employability skills. Africa faces a huge digital skills gap, which is diluting economic opportunities and development. Some 230…
Tanzania-based Fintech company, NALA has teamed up with Cellulant, a Pan-African Payments Company, to allow remittance payments from the United Kingdom and the United States into Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ghana. Besides Official Direct Assistance (ODA), remittances make up the second-largest source of external resources for Sub-Subsaharan Africa. In…
Telegram users can now send crypto through the instant messaging app. The platform has introduced a new feature, ‘Wallet bot’ which enables its users to buy its native cryptocurrency Toncoin) within its messaging app. The initial rollout of the bot will allow the sending and receiving of Toncoins, which the…
MTN and five other world’s leading telcos announced today, the creation of Alaian, an alliance to connect the open innovation ecosystems of these leading global telcos to reach 50 countries and 700 million customers. The members of Alaian are Bouygues Telecom, Cellnex, KPN, MTN, Telefónica and WINDTRE. With this alliance…
Football icons David Beckham and Ronaldinho are stepping into the virtual world with the launching of their brands inside the metaverse. The two legendary former footballers are also taking big leaps into the world of cryptocurrency and digital collectibles. Former Brazilian football ace, Ronaldinho will be launching his new cryptocurrency…
American subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service, Disney+, in January announced it will be launching its service in Africa and later confirmed it will commence operations on the Continent on 18 May 2022 with South Africa being its first point of call. As part of the launch, MultiChoice has announced that…
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) has announced a new round of funding under which the African Development Bank’s Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) will receive $15 million to develop and extend digital financial solutions to women-owned small and medium businesses in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, and Nigeria. This…
Ghana’s Agritech startup, Farmerline, has secured a US$6.4 million Pre-Series A investment and $6.5 million debt to strengthen its supply chain for agribusinesses; reduce the cost of farming, and increase yield for farmers on the continent through the deployment of AI technology and local infrastructure. The US$6.4 million Pre-Series A…
American online non-fungible token marketplace, OpenSea has acquired Gem, the leading NFT marketplace aggregator. Gem lets you buy NFTs across multiple marketplaces with a single, low-cost transaction, and is known for its easy collection floor-sweeping, and rarity-based ranking for collections. The acquisition will provide Gem with resources to accelerate its product…