Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

Mamamoni, a Nigerian fintech social enterprise, has secured a €250,000 funding grant from the Challenge For Youth Employment (CFYE). The CFYE is financially supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and boasts collaboration with numerous organisations, including SheLeads Africa, ReelFruit, Utiva, Stutern, and Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria. It holds…

X, previously identified as Twitter, has finally compensated employees who were dismissed from its African headquarters more than a year ago. The agency that serves as their representative revealed this information. These employees had been jobless for over a year following layoffs at the company’s African base. The majority of…

WigWag, a branch of the South African payment service provider Stitch, has unveiled an AI-powered bot for managing payments on WhatsApp. Aimed at the small and medium-sized business sector, the tool strives to ease the management of payments without needing to switch between various apps and browsers. Launched in September…

The construction sector, a $2 trillion a year industry in the U.S. alone, is fraught with various strenuous, repetitive, and sometimes dangerous tasks, making it ripe for disruption through automation. The industry’s diverse challenges provide an opportunity for multiple startups to operate within the same space without direct competition. The…

For most organizations and start-ups, the fiscal year of 2023 proved to be an arduous journey. Numerous businesses faced hardship on the financial front, engaging in tight-budget maneuvers like making cuts just for survival and struggling to pull investments. Equivalently, for finance-driven cybercriminals, particularly ransomware and extortion gangs, earnings reached…

Google is working on a new feature within its Search function aimed at eliminating the need for users to wait on hold. The feature will hold the line for users and notify them when a customer service representative is available for a conversation. The feature, according to 9to5Google, is currently…

Toast, the maker of restaurant management software, has announced plans to lay off 550 employees, representing 10% of its workforce. This decision comes amid several technology companies making similar downsizing moves in 2024, the most recent being Cisco with its decision to cut 4,000 jobs due to declining sales and…

The grocery delivery giant Instacart recently made a significant announcement, revealing plans to lay off roughly 250 of its employees. This constitutes approximately 7% of the company’s total workforce and is part of a restructuring effort within the company. The announcement was made on the same day Instacart released its…

MultiChoice’s newly revamped Showmax video streaming service has announced its ambition to become the top platform across Africa. However, research paints a slightly different picture for the service’s future position. Digital TV Research’s projections suggest that the updated Showmax will occupy the second spot among Africa’s video streaming companies within…

In an effort to revive user engagement, Clubhouse, the once-popular live audio app, has announced a new feature allowing users to send text messages in their own customized voices. In addition to the previously introduced group voice chats, where members could send each other asynchronous voice messages similar to Instagram…

Shares of Jumia, the e-commerce company focusing on African markets, saw a substantial increase of 41.18%, closing at $4.56 on Thursday following the release of their Q4 2023 financial results, which were well-received by the stock market. The company managed to reduce its operating loss to $4.5 million in the…

On February 14th, 2024, Luno, a prominent cryptocurrency company, revealed its plan to issue monthly proof-of-reserves reports. The move is designed to assure customers that their funds are being securely held. To improve the transparency of reporting, Luno will team up with Moore Johannesburg, a South African business and accounting…

Proton, a software company based in Switzerland that emphasises privacy protection, announced receiving a notification regarding the possibility of its email service, Proton Mail, being blocked in India. This move follows incidents in which the service was used to send hoax bomb threats to multiple schools in the southern Indian…

Arnergy, a Nigerian startup specializing in clean tech solutions, has successfully garnered $3 million funding from All On – an investment company focusing on off-grid energy impact. This funding aims at enable Arnergy to scale up its operations and speed up the broader adoption of its services. This financial boost…

South African fintech firm, iKhokha, has provided over $105 million in working capital to its SME clients in partnership with Retail Capital, a division of TymeBank. iKhokha allows entrepreneurs to accept both in-person and online payments, while offering access to working capital and affordable business management tools such as daily…

Newly launched pan-African B2B marketplace, Zandaux.com, has commenced operations in South Africa as it aims to become the “Alibaba of Africa”. The e-commerce platform connects buyers and sellers across the continent adopting a “one Africa, one market” approach and allows businesses across all sectors to offer their services and products…

YouTube is rolling out the ability for users to incorporate or “remix” music videos directly into their short-form videos, also known as Shorts, as it continues to compete with TikTok. YouTube’s vast library of official music videos gives it a unique advantage in this arena. The timing is particularly noteworthy…

The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) of Uganda plans to incorporate iris biometrics as an extra security feature for the country’s national ID cards. This initiative comes amidst preparations for an extensive registration exercise aimed at renewing or enrolling about 30 million Ugandans whose IDs are set to expire.…

Jumia, a leading African e-commerce firm, managed to curtail its operating losses to $4.5 million by Q4 in 2023, owing to several significant strategic adjustments. Despite these changes, the company’s profitability is still under scrutiny. Amid these adjustments, Jumia took the challenging decision to discontinue Jumia Food due to the…

Prominent African e-commerce platform Jumia conducted a round of layoffs within its workforce in Kenya and other African markets in January 2024. This decision came a month after Jumia opted to terminate its food delivery business, Jumia Food. The total number of employees affected by these layoffs has not been…