TradeDepot, the leading B2B eCommerce and embedded finance platform in Africa, has announced the acquisition of Green Lion, the biggest and fastest growing B2B eCommerce platform in Ghana, to accelerate the delivery of its services across the country. Founded in 2018, Green Lion has been committed to revolutionising access to…
Author: Oluwasegun Olukotun
Nigerian emerging markets neobank, Canza Finance has announced the completion of its $3.27M seed round led by Fenbushi Capital, with participation from Dominance Ventures, Bixin Ventures, Consensys, Protocol Labs, Emergo Ventures, MEXC Global, NGC Ventures, XanPool, Hashkey, the founders of Celo, and others. Canza which is building the world’s largest…
Clickatell, the CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) innovator and Chat Commerce leader, today announced it has secured $91 million in their Series C round. This round was led by Arrowroot Capital, with participation from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Endeavor Global, and Harvest. Clickatell will use the Series C capital…
Mastercard is calling for nominations for its inaugural Women SME Leaders Awards 2022 aimed at recognizing and further empowering women-owned and run SMEs in the Middle East and Africa. Only small enterprises in trading owned and run by women and with a turnover of less than US$13.6 million (AED50 million)…
First Bank of Nigeria Limited has announced its partnership with CDC Group, the UK Government’s development finance institution on a US$100 million finance facility to FirstBank. This new investment will funnel funding to women-owned and led businesses as well as to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. The…
54gene, the health technology company advancing African genomics research for improved global health outcomes, has announced the awarding of $64,000 in scholarships to four Ph.D. candidates in Nigeria, Uganda, and South Africa. Through the African Centre for Translational Genetics (ACTG), a non-profit initiative launched by 54gene in February 2020, the…
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has committed $164 million for the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework (LEAF) to promote decentralized renewable energy in six African countries. The LEAF program which is an $800 million initiative will catalyze commercial and local currency investments to scale up the activities of decentralized renewable…
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced plans to establish an innovation and entrepreneurship centre in Kenya. Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, during a working visit to the UAE, had held bilateral talks with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme…
OPPO on Thursday announced February 24 as the launch date for its OPPO Find X5 series, the company’s high-end flagship smartphone with world-first imaging experiences. OPPO combines exciting high-end design with best-in-class technology and camera innovation. The company At OPPO INNO Day 2021 announced MariSilicon X, the dedicated imaging Neural…
Universal Music Group (UMG) has teamed up with Curio, the premier Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platform for entertainment brands and musical artists to develop NFT collections for its labels and artists. The agreement will enable UMG to leverage Curio’s groundbreaking technology, exclusive partnerships, and innovative fan engagement networks, to create and…
Moroccan transport management software company Freterium has raised $4 million in a seed round led by US investment platform Partech. The round had Y Combinator, Flexport, CDG Invest, Swiss Founders Fund, Outlierz Ventures, and other angels as participants. The company will deploy the fund into boosting its tech and product development while also…
The Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the Ecobank Group, the Ecobank Foundation has appointed Elisa Desbordes-Cissé as its Chief Operating Officer. The Ecobank Foundation over the last few years has made significant progress in Africa through its focus on three pillars, namely education, healthcare and financial empowerment. Elisa who will…
Central Bank of Kenya has granted Cellulant a Payment Service Provider authorisation in Kenya, enabling the company to expand its payments offering for businesses, banks, and consumers. The authorisation also permits Cellulant to continue enabling businesses to collect payments online and offline while allowing anyone to pay from their mobile…
The coalition for a sustainable and inclusive recovery of the private sector, an international group of 20 development finance institutions that came together in 2020, today announced commitments of over $5.55 billion of financing to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa between mid-2020 and end of 2021, beating…
Mobile telecommunications company MTN has announced it is rebranding. As part of the rebranding, the telco has revealed a new logo before an official event scheduled for February 2022. The company also said it is transitioning from a telecommunications company to a technology company. The new logo which will see…
Earnipay, a financial technology solution that provides flexible and on-demand salary access to income-earners, has closed a Seed round of $4million led by Canaan and with participation from XYZ Ventures, Village Global, Musha Ventures, Ventures Platform, Voltron Capital, and Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade. Targeting employees across Africa, Earnipay officially launched…
Leading mobile data and analytics company, App Annie, has announced it has changed its name to data.ai, establishing a big enterprise market opportunity: “Unified Data AI”. The company said that the new name reflects the company’s vision to drive comprehensive digital performance with products and partnerships. data.ai is the first…
Leading technology company, Flutterwave today announced that it has raised USD $250 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at over $3 billion as the brand continues to transform the way Africans transact on the continent and worldwide Flutterwave has become the highest valued African start-up with this investment.…
Intel Corporation today announced it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire leading foundry for analog semiconductor solutions, Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Intel’s non-GAAP EPS. The acquisition significantly advances Intel’s IDM 2.0 strategy as the company further expands its manufacturing…
Semiconductor company, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) has completed its acquisition of Xilinx in a record chip industry deal valued at about $50 billion in an all-stock transaction. The acquisition which was first announced in 2020 is expected to give AMD an edge, in terms of engineering resources, and to…