Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

South African entrepreneur Samantha Rosenberg and her business partner Avion Grey have made headlines by raising the largest pre-seed round in Europe by female founders for their new investment platform called Belong. The recent launch of the start-up followed a successful funding round in which the company raised £2.95 million…

Ebury, a leading financial services firm based in the UK, has recently forged a strategic partnership with dLocal, a global payment platform that specializes in emerging high-growth markets. The partnership aims to increase both companies’ influence in Africa. The recent agreement was officially announced by Ebury. The company framed this…

AT&T has confirmed that sensitive data of approximately 7.6 million of its current customers and 65.4 million former customers has been leaked on the dark web. According to an update on the company’s support page, AT&T has taken immediate action to reset the passcodes of all active accounts affected by…

Instagram is in the process of developing a new function called “Blend”. This feature was uncovered by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi and has been confirmed by Instagram as currently being trialed internally. As yet, there have been no public tests. Blend is designed to recommend Reels – short, engaging video…

X is developing features to allow administrators of its “Communities” function, a tool similar to subreddits, to label their groups as containing “adult content”. This development in the Elon Musk-owned company was confirmed by an engineer following reports of the company’s plans for enabling NSFW groups. In a post on…

The upcoming edition of the eLearning Africa conference and exhibition is scheduled to happen from May 29-31 in Kigali, Rwanda. The annual eLearning Africa conference serves as a hub for stakeholders in the education and ed-tech ecosystem, allowing them to interact with the most recent developments in digital learning and…

Google is set to discontinue its Podcasts app in the U.S. and has alerted users to shift their subscriptions to YouTube Music by April 2 so they can continue streaming their preferred shows. If users are not able to switch immediately, they will still have extra time for the transition,…

LinkedIn is experimenting with a new TikTok-style short-form video feed, as confirmed to TechCrunch recently. This move sees LinkedIn joining several other mainstream apps that have incorporated short-form video feeds in response to TikTok’s soaring popularity, such as Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Netflix. The new feature was first reported by…

The Bank of Uganda has granted approval to Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) to downgrade its operations from a Tier I commercial bank to a Tier II credit institution. The action comes after the bank, a subsidiary of Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) Plc, anticipated its inability to meet the new…

South African telecommunications provider, Telkom, is subsidizing the cost of Amazon service subscriptions, like Prime Video and Prime Video Mobile Edition, for its customers as part of a 12-month promotional offer. This offer spans from March 28, 2024, to March 27, 2025 and is applicable only to Telkom customers who…

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has established the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC) and chosen 31 notable individuals from the private and public sectors to fill its ranks. Included in this selection are several prominent figures from the Nigerian tech industry. Bosun Tijani, founder of CcHub, Nigeria’s inaugural tech…

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently revised the minimum capital requirements for different categories of banks in the country. According to the new directives, commercial banks with international authorization are required to have a minimum capital of N500 billion, while those with national authorization need N200 billion. Meanwhile, banks…

Yango Delivery, an African logistics startup specializing in urban service delivery, has launched a new feature called Cargo Express aimed at enhancing the delivery of large and oversized items across the continent. The introduction of this feature is aimed at resolving prevalent issues in the logistics sector, including unclear pricing…

The Tunisia-based fund of funds, ANAVA, has invested €4 million ($4.3 million) in the Janngo Capital Startup Fund (JCSF), which targets African startups, particularly those in Francophone countries and those founded by women. This marks ANAVA’s inaugural investment in Pan-African funds and is expected to support the growth and expansion…

South Africa’s Information Regulator has initiated an independent inquiry into the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) following a security breach of their systems, as announced in a recent media briefing. The regulator revealed that it received reports suggesting that hackers were still active within the CIPC IT environment, implying…

Telecom Egypt and Tejas Networks, an Indian company specializing in optical, broadband, and data networking products, have entered into a memorandum of understanding to enhance telecommunication research and development, manufacturing facilities, and skill development in Egypt. Tejas Networks plans to apply its experience from the Bharatnet (Rural Broadband Project) and…

ByteDance, the parent company of popular app TikTok, has officially shut down instant messaging platform LetsChat. The announcement was made on the company’s website, and operations came to an end on Saturday, March 23, 2024. LetsChat, which at one point was seen as a potential rival for app giants WhatsApp…

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is reported to have successfully recovered approximately $10 million from customers who withdrew excessive amounts of money from their accounts due to a system malfunction that occurred on March 16, 2024. Though initial reports suggested a loss of up to $40 million, CBE’s head,…

Telecoms giant, MTN, is considering raising tariffs as well as a cost-cutting exercise as part of efforts to restore the company’s profitability. In line with this, it is currently working with several regulators in its operational countries for the increase in voice and dat tariffs. The resolution followed MTN’s statement…

Elon Musk’s company, xAI, has announced the wider availability of its Grok chatbot, a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Available to premium subscribers of xAI later this week, Musk made the announcement via a tweet which included a tutorial video on how to interact with Grok on the company’s website. Previously,…