Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

Clive Butkow, a Venture Capitalist, has launched a new venture capital firm, Conducive Capital, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The firm aims to create tech unicorns in South Africa and across Africa by investing in early and growth-stage disruptive technologies that are post-revenue and have a strong product-market fit. The firm…

SA Rugby, the organization responsible for South Africa’s World Cup-winning Springboks rugby team, expects to bolster its sponsorship revenue. The organization, propelled by Springboks’ successive World Cup victories, including the most recent in France, is pursuing a private equity deal to double its revenue by the 2027 World Cup. The…

BRKZ, a construction tech startup, has successfully raised $8 million in a Series A funding round. This funding will be used to expand in Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Beco Capital and 9900 Capital led the round, which also saw participation from Wa’ed Ventures,…

French VC firm, Ring Capital, recently announced the establishment of Ring Africa, an impact investment fund targeting French-speaking West African startups. The fund, which will invest in pre-seed to Series A stages, aims to support firms with a pronounced social and environmental agenda. Ring Africa hopes to raise €50 million…

With the growing trend of remote work, companies worldwide are changing their strategies, particularly in their onboarding processes and dealing with cross-border payment complexities. This shift in work practices has boosted the demand for startups offering human resource (HR), payroll, and compliance tools, helping firms hire remotely. RemotePass, a UAE-based…

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has been experiencing a busy year, and it’s only March. This digital currency reached a new all-time high, the first since November 2021, surpassing $69,000 early on Tuesday morning. The recent increase in demand follows the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S and…

Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it will cease all its services related to Nigeria’s currency, the Naira, from March 8. The decision has been made in light of the company’s current regulatory issues in Nigeria. A statement made via its mobile application revealed this news. Binance…

Instagram has unveiled a new feature allowing users to edit their direct messages up to 15 minutes after sending, aiming to help users correct typos or rephrase messages. Users can activate it by pressing and holding the message and selecting ‘edit’ from the drop-down menu. Once edited, the message will…

Cell C, a mobile operator, has officially assigned El Kope as its chief financial officer (CFO). Since last August, Kope has been the interim CFO after the previous CFO Lerato Pule left for a similar position at Liquid Intelligent Technologies. In making this announcement, Cell C expressed excitement, stating the…

Human resources (HR) startup Deel is expanding its portfolio by acquiring PaySpace, an African-based payroll and HR software company. This acquisition, which is Deel’s largest to date, comes less than a week after it acquired Zavvy, a Munich-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup developing tools for personalized career progression, training, and…

FMR LLC, a prominent American multinational financial services firm and one of the top five investors in Kenya’s Safaricom, is significantly reducing its stake in the company by selling off millions of shares. This decision follows a delay in dividend repatriation and has led FMR to decrease its Safaricom shareholding…

Ride-hailing company, Bolt, has extended its operations into Cairo, Egypt, a move that places it in direct competition with other transport service providers such as Uber and inDrive. The expansion signifies Bolt’s pursuit of a broader market footprint in North Africa, in sync with its strategic growth plan in Africa.…

Apple has been hit with a record $1.95 billion (€1.8 billion) fine by the European Commission for infringing EU antitrust regulations across the music streaming market on the App Store, surpassing any initial expectations. The penalty is a response to the investigation initiated in 2020 after Spotify lodged a complaint,…

Apple declared that they have introduced new MacBook Air models that feature 13-inch and 15-inch screen sizes powered by its M3 chip. The price of the 13-inch variant initiates from $1099, which is notably $100 less than the M2 Air model. On the other hand, the price of the 15-inch…

The trend of tech firms laying off employees continues. In 2022, 1,061 companies laid off a whopping 164,969 individuals, and by 2023, this figure had already risen to 262,682. Now, Nigerian property tech startup, Spleet, is reportedly preparing for layoffs in 2024. The number of the 32 full-time employees that…

Bitcoin-oriented payments platform, Strike, has announced its plan to extend its services to Nigeria and several other African countries, including Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia, with more countries coming soon. The decision to expand, according to Strike, comes from a response to the challenges of building…

Electronic Arts (EA), the renowned video game corporation, has reported that it will decrease its workforce by 5% as part of a broader strategy that includes lessening office space and discontinuing development on certain video games. As per the company’s recent annual filing in May with the U.S. Securities and…

Bfree, a Nigerian startup specializing in debt collection, was established with the aim of automating and instituting ethical processes for debt recovery. It was set up in response to the harmful consequences of aggressive debt collection techniques such as consistent phone calls and public shaming of debtors by unscrupulous digital…

Following a series of preliminary and unverified reports, the Financial Times has now definitively confirmed the arrest of two top executives from the cryptocurrency company, Binance, in Nigeria. The two executives had traveled to Nigeria the previous week due to a ban imposed on their website in the country. They…

The recent ruling of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has ordered Vodacom Group Limited, a prominent telecommunications corporation, to pay Kenneth Nkosana Makate, the innovator behind the Please Call Me (PCM) service, a considerable sum estimated to be between 5% to 7.5% of the total revenue derived from…