Since the beginning of 2021, Africa-based tech startups have raised more than $2.9 billion with Nigerian startups which are creating new products, services, and platforms raising $1.7 billion of this total or about 60% of it, a new report has found.

According to business consultant and venture capitalist Maxime Bayen’s business database Africa report, otherwise known as the Big Deal, Africa boasts a total of seven tech “unicorns,” or companies valued at over $1 billion...

Yellow Pages has launched a new service designed to help SMEs grow the visibility of their businesses both online and offline. Known as Yellow Connect, the new service is also expected to helo the SMEs reach more customers with prices starting from as low as Sh. 2,500. 

While making the announcement, Yellow Pages CEO, Pedro Gomes, noted that small businesses may lack the manpower and capital to dedicate to large scale marketing efforts, and this is the gap that Yellow Connect aims to fill. “In my...

FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi), the investing arm of FSD Africa, has today announced a £3m investment in Kenyan fintech firm IMFact.

IMFact is a non-deposit taking financial institution that uses supply chain financing to provide working capital to SMEs. As a “pooled receivables” factoring business, IMFact purchases bulk invoices from MSMEs for a mix of upfront cash and deferred payments. This gives the sellers access to cash without the need to follow up or wait for invoices to be paid, freeing up...

NowPay, Egypt’s leading financial wellness platform has announced partnerships with some of the world’s biggest names in the food and beverages sector, including McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Kraft Heinz, Americana Group, Edita and Wadi Group.

The new partnerships will cover 40,000 employees in Egypt, and are a stunning example of how globally renowned brands are adopting NowPay’s services. NowPay enables employees to receive salary advances at any time – encouraging financial...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region are recognizing digitalization as essential to staying competitive in a transformed business and economic environment.

The insight is one of many in a new white paper by payments technology leader Mastercard, which explores the way small businesses are viewing digital payments, online presence and the benefits of an evolving cashless economy. The white paper, titled ‘The Digital SME: How Are Small and Medium...

Absa Bank Kenya, in collaboration with the German Development Cooperation have launched a KES 50 Million program aimed at increasing growth and competitiveness of 1,500 women-owned Micro, Small and Medium Businesses impacted by the Covid-19 economic situation, through blended finance and business development services capacity building.

The partnership is under the Employment and Skills for Development in Africa (E4D) Programme commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and...

Kenyan fintech firm Mobile Financial Solutions (MFS) Technologies has launched a digital insurance booking platform to meet the growing demand for insurance policies purchase and claims processes.

InsureMe, the end-to-end digital platform comes with a digital buy-now, pay-later option for comprehensive car insurance through its Insurance Premium Financing-led Lipa Pole Pole solution cushioning motor car owners from upfront premium payments which range from between 2.5%-6.5%...

Kenya’s fintech startup Tanda has today announced a new partnership with Twiga Foods that will see Twiga vendors become a one-stop-shop for a variety of digital and financial services offered by Tanda.

This comes a few months after Tanda launched the Tanda I/O, a new platform for developers to embed digital and financial services on their applications. This API allows any digital platform to plug into Tanda’s banking & payments API to enable seamless integration of financial services into a traditionally non-financial platform. All a partner needs is to...

Nigeria-based Ventures Platform has announced the first close of its $40 million pan-African fund to invest in market-creating innovations across Africa.

Launched in 2016 by Nigeria’s most active early-stage investors, Kola Aina, Ventures Platform has acted as a key partner and conduit for international funds and stakeholders seeking a reliable and experienced partner to do business in Africa. This close was led by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and features participation from existing...

The African Development Bank Group approved a $1.5 million grant to assess policy gaps in the digital trade and e-Commerce ecosystems in 10 countries in Africa.

The funds, sourced from the African Development Fund, the Bank’s concessional window, will go to the Smart Africa Alliance, an alliance of 32 African countries, international organisations and global corporations with a vision to create a single digital market in Africa by 2030. Nicholas Williams, the Bank’s Division Manager for ICT Operations said, ''This...

Paylend, a Kenyan fintech startup focused on providing access to finance and digitizing MSMEs in Kenya announced it has raised $2 million seed investment from Next Chymia Consulting HK Limited, an Asian based company that provides blockchain applications, consultancy services and training to global entities.

Founded in September 2019, Paylend has digitized over 10,000 SMEs and growing with its users enjoying an array of services including access to credit for products and services...

Helium Health was founded in 2016 by three incredible young Nigerians The technology start-up ecosystem in Nigeria is one of the fiercest on the continent falling short to South Africa and Kenya. On a daily basis, young Nigerians look for various ways to add value to themselves for survival.

Through the hustle and bustle of some of Nigeria’s biggest cities, tech-labs that educate young Nigerians on how to code and make efficient use of the internet spring up regularly. To validate how the system has grown in a short space of time...

The tech world was shaken this past week. A vulnerability affecting Apache Log4j versions 2.0 to 2.14.1 was disclosed on the project’s GitHub page. Apache comprises about one-third of all web servers in the world - making this flaw, dubbed Log4Shell, highly critical and an urgent priority for IT teams.

Security teams must stay vigilant in the days and weeks ahead because state-sponsored actors such as China and Iran and other bad actors are lurking, just waiting to exploit Log4j to launch broader attacks. What’s the big deal, some may...

A digital marketing agency is undoubtedly one of the most profitable and rewarding businesses you can operate in Africa for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it is actually comparatively easy to set up from nothing. While other types of businesses - such as a manufacturing business, clothes shop, or tech company - require a significant amount of capital (whether equipment, real estate, or a large workforce) to get off the ground, a digital marketing agency can be started with nothing but a laptop in your bedroom...

As we come to the end of the year, there is so much to look forward to in 2022 when it comes to cloud adoption in Africa. 2021 was a good year with more African organisations migrating to the cloud, driven mainly by the pandemic. 

According to industry analysts Gartner, Cloud spending rose 37% to $29 billion during the first quarter of 2020. This trend Gartner says is likely to persist, as the exodus to virtual work underscores the urgency for scalable, secure, reliable, cost-effective off-premises technology services. In fact, despite...