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Egypt's Healthtech Startup, Vezeeta, Lays Off 10% of its Staff: The Recent Wave of Downsizing by African Startups

African tech startups

Egypt's Healthtech Startup, Vezeeta, Lays Off 10% of its Staff: The Recent Wave of Downsizing by African Startups

Judging by how amazingly the African tech startups performed in fundraising in the Q1 2022, one would have expected the tech ecosystem to continue to do wonders and possibly, outperform its last year’s record, where it secured $4.4 billion in funding. According to data from the Big Deal,

The Cold War continues as MTN’s MoMo accuses 18 Nigerian banks of $53 million mobile money fraud

The Cold War continues as MTN’s MoMo accuses 18 Nigerian banks of $53 million mobile money fraud

Fintech arm of telecom giant, MTN MoMo has reportedly sued 18 Nigerian commercial banks for $53.7 million mobile money fraud. Access Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, FirstBank, First City Monument Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Heritage Bank, Polaris Bank, Providus Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Standard Chartered, Sterling Bank, SunTrust Bank, Union Bank,

Rooomxix is Changing Streetwear Narrative in Africa

Rooomxix is Changing Streetwear Narrative in Africa

Africa’s contribution to the $2.5 trillion global fashion market is estimated to be less than 1% of the total. Euromonitor estimates the Sub-Saharan fashion market to be worth $31 billion, with Nigeria contributing 15% of that ($4.7 billion). This contribution is significantly less than South Africa’s

Nigeria’s Social Payments Startup, Abeg App Gets Mobile Money License by CBN, Rebrands as PocketApp

Nigeria’s Social Payments Startup, Abeg App Gets Mobile Money License by CBN, Rebrands as PocketApp

Abeg Technologies Limited, acquired by PiggyTech Global Limited, the parent company of PiggyVest, today announced that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had granted it an Approval In Principle (AIP) to operate as a Mobile Money Operator (MMO) in Nigeria. Abeg is currently the first Nigerian social commerce platform to

TLcom Capital Appoints Eloho Omame As Partner to Back More Pre-seed and Female-led Startups

TLcom Capital Appoints Eloho Omame As Partner to Back More Pre-seed and Female-led Startups

TLcom Capital, an Africa-focused venture capital firm, has announced the appointment of Eloho Omame, the Co-Founder & General Partner at FirstCheck Africa as a partner to facilitate its deployment of TIDE Africa Fund II its new $150 million pan-African tech fund. Eloho, a Co-Founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa,

Appraisal of Twitter's Journey as it Rolls Out New Features

Appraisal of Twitter's Journey as it Rolls Out New Features

Twitter’s importance in our daily lives cannot be overstated; from politics to pop culture to ordinary discourse, the microblogging site now serves a considerably different role than it did a few years ago. Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone to

Another Win for ThriveAgric as it Emerges Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022 for Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region

Another Win for ThriveAgric as it Emerges Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022 for Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region

The light at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting brighter for Nigerian Agric-tech startup, ThriveAgric. The tech-driven startup yesterday emerged as the winner of the Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI). The VEI is a global innovation program and competition for startups

Coinbase Set to Launch First Crypto Derivatives Product for Retail Traders

Coinbase Set to Launch First Crypto Derivatives Product for Retail Traders

Coinbase, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, is launching the first cryptocurrency derivatives product for retail traders. This new derivative is dubbed Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, formerly FairX, later this month in the hopes of attracting more retail traders. Coinbase Derivatives Exchange hopes to capitalize on a $3 trillion

Maximizing the use of African Apps in the Global Mobile App Market

Maximizing the use of African Apps in the Global Mobile App Market

The global mobile app market is worth nearly $25 billion, but Africa has almost no share of this mouthwatering cake. Africa is yet to explore this goldmine. The world’s second-biggest and fastest-growing mobile telephone market (after China) is yet to tap into the seemingly endless opportunities in the market.

Kenya’s Kune Food Shut Down Operations Barely After 10 months, Blames Hash Economic Weather

Kenya’s Kune Food Shut Down Operations Barely After 10 months, Blames Hash Economic Weather

Kune Food, a Kenya-based food tech startup, announced Wednesday that it is shutting down operations. The founder and CEO, Robin Reecht, attributed inflated food prices that have hampered the startup from raising another round since its seed round last year. Reecht founded Kune Food in December 2020 to offer ready-to-eat

Time to Show Concern for Kenya?

Time to Show Concern for Kenya?

Three weeks ago, Dubai-based bus-hailing startup SWVL announced the suspension of its daily and city-to-city services in Kenya. Weeks later, Kune, a food-tech startup delivering ready-to-eat meals at affordable prices, closed down. Kune seemed to be having things going their way. French entrepreneur Robin Reecht launched Kune in 2020. Its

Egypt’s Fintech, MNT-Halan Acquires Talabeyah, B2B E-commerce Startup for an Undisclosed Amount

Egypt’s Fintech, MNT-Halan Acquires Talabeyah, B2B E-commerce Startup for an Undisclosed Amount

MNT-Halan, a leading Egyptian fintech startup and the fastest-growing lender to the unbanked and underbanked has acquired Talabeyah. This fellow Egyptian B2B e-commerce startup provides FMCG supplies directly to small merchants, retailers, and, soon, consumers, meeting all of their requirements with next-day delivery for an undisclosed sum. The transaction’s

Egypt’s AI Startup, Synapse Analytics Secures $2M Pre-Series A to Help Businesses Adopt AI

Artificial Intelligence

Egypt’s AI Startup, Synapse Analytics Secures $2M Pre-Series A to Help Businesses Adopt AI

Synapse Analytics, an Egyptian AI-technology startup, has secured more than $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round to accelerate AI adoption for African businesses. Egypt Ventures led the pre-series A round with participation from its existing investors, Cloudera founder Amr Awadallah and Simon Rowlands of Africa Platforms. Ahmed Abaza

Best Seed Funding Types Available for Early-stage Startups

Best Seed Funding Types Available for Early-stage Startups

Let’s talk funding. Funding rounds are part of the most important features of a startup, they make up its success story. Every business strives to gradually increase its customer base, make a return off of its initial investment, surpass its rivals, and eventually win much desired recognition. Although it’

Thepeer, API-based Startup Gets $2.1M for Seamless Wallet Transfers between African Businesses

Thepeer, API-based Startup Gets $2.1M for Seamless Wallet Transfers between African Businesses

Thepeer, an African tech infrastructure startup facilitating seamless wallet transfers between businesses, has secured $2.1 million in Raba Partnership-led seed round. This comes a year after the startup raised a $220,000 pre-seed round. Ralil_cap Ventures, BYLD Ventures, Timon Capital, Musha Ventures, Sunu, Uncovered Fund, and African fintech

Ghanaian Fintech Startup, Fido Raises $30M Series A Round to Launch New Products, Expand to Uganda

Ghanaian Fintech Startup, Fido Raises $30M Series A Round to Launch New Products, Expand to Uganda

Fido, an Accra-based fintech startup that provides credit to Ghanaians, has raised $30 million in equity investment and undisclosed debt funding in a Series A funding round led by Fortissimo Capital, an Israel-based private equity fund, with participation from Yard Ventures, a VC fund formed by Harvard alumni. This brings

Afropolitan Takes Africa to Web3 as it Gets $2.1M to Build a Digital Nation for Africans

Afropolitan Group

Afropolitan Takes Africa to Web3 as it Gets $2.1M to Build a Digital Nation for Africans

Afropolitan Group, an Afrocentric Community As A Service Company (CAAS) that curates a seamless experience in Travel, Events, and Media for the African diaspora, has raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding led by Srinivasan to build a digital nation for Africans. Other angel investors include Future Africa’s Iyinoluwa

mTek Secures $3M in Funding to Provide Seamless Health Insurance Cover for Kenyans

Finclusion Group

mTek Secures $3M in Funding to Provide Seamless Health Insurance Cover for Kenyans

mTek, a Kenyan insurtech startup that offers paperless insurance through its platform, has secured a $3 million funding round from Finclusion Group. This follows in the wake of a $1.50 million investment. The insurtech startup has had sustained and attractive growth since its start in 2020, tripling its customer

Amazon is Coming. Beware Jumia

Amazon announced it will be expanding to Nigeria and South Africa by April 2023. And no, I don’t mean the group of female warriors and hunters who matched men in physical agility and strength and possessed archery, riding skills, and combat arts. Instead, I am talking about the American

Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok: Startups can get the most out of Social Media

Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok: Startups can get the most out of Social Media

According to Statista, there will be 4.41 billion active social media users by 2025. That is to say, in 3 years, startups will be able to reach over 4 billion people, share content, and make more waves. In addition, the number of people using social media sites is increasing.

Start up; Africans show flexibility amidst global chaos

Start up; Africans show flexibility amidst global chaos

All around the globe, blockchain is shifting familiar structures in tangible ways even as Africans show resilience in startups amidst the chaos. Technology-dominated startups on the continent will continue to attract investments, even at a slower pace, considering the venture capital attracted over the past years. This sector has seen

Crypto (Defi) isn't Immune to Macroeconomic Realities After all! How is it Affecting Africans?

Crypto (Defi) isn't Immune to Macroeconomic Realities After all! How is it Affecting Africans?

At the very least, it has become apparent that the much-touted Decentralized Finance, Defi, is not immune to the macroeconomic realities and its volatility as the world is again witnessing the cryptocurrency’s dramatic free fall in recent weeks. In those, hundreds of millions of dollars have been liquidated. People

The scramble for digital Africa

The scramble for digital Africa

Digital colonialism refers to a modern-day “Scramble for Africa” where largescale tech companies extract, analyze, and own user data for profit and market influence with little benefit to the data source. As Western technology companies increasingly rely on user data globally, extensive data protection laws and regulations emerged to ensure

Telegram Records 700M Monthly Active users, Rolls out premium Tier

Telegram Records 700M Monthly Active users, Rolls out premium Tier

Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging platform, has recorded over 700 million monthly active users as it launched a premium tier to monetize a portion of its large user base. Although the company did not disclose its premium tier price, the monthly subscription appears to be in the $5 to $6

Jobop, Moroccan Tech-Enabled Temporarily Staffing Platform Receives $1M Seed Round for Expansion

Azur Innovation Fund

Jobop, Moroccan Tech-Enabled Temporarily Staffing Platform Receives $1M Seed Round for Expansion

Jobop, a Moroccan tech-enabled on-demand temporary staffing startup, announced that it had received $1 million in an Azur Innovation Fund-led Seed funding round, with participation from Plug and Play and other angels. The round is said to have been closed since April this year. Adil Zghaoui and Salim El Merrassi