Persistent Energy announced it has raised $10 million in equity in its Series C round. The raise, which was achieved with the support of Kyuden International Corporation and FSD Africa Investments, will enable Persistent continue to grow its climate venture building business in Africa.

The equity raise took the form of Series C Preferred Units of ownership in Persistent, giving Series C investors a seat on the Board of Directors. The largest investor of this Series C round, Kyuden International Corporation (Kyuden), is the...

To support the growth of digital finance services in West Africa, IFC announced a partnership with Orange Bank Africa (OBA) to increase access to finance for agents and merchants operating in the mobile money ecosystem.

Under the partnership, IFC will provide advisory services to Orange Bank Africa to help the mobile bank develop and test innovative and scalable digital lending products that meet the specific needs of mobile money agents as well as merchants...

Following the successful launch in 12 markets since the beginning of 2022, Nielsen continues the roll out of its enhanced Nielsen Identity System for Digital Ad Ratings. 

Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Norway, Poland, Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Malaysia, UAE, Czech Republic and Hungary are the new markets. Forthcoming cookie deprecation is fundamentally changing the advertising ecosystem. Combined with the deterioration of other digital identifiers, there is...

Egypt's Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport (AASTMT) and RobotLAB, the educational robotics company, announced a partnership to build an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics lab on the campus.

The AI LAB, the first and largest of its kind in MENA region includes:

• Autonomous Agents Station
• Smart Warehouse Station
• Human Robot Interaction Station...

With the goal of supporting an inclusive financial system that contributes to prosperity for all, mobile-first blockchain ecosystem Celo has launched a new programme to support African startups across payments, remittances, virtual assets, savings, and related financial services.

The Celo Africa Web3 Fund will help provide financial investments through its VC partners and technical assistance through the Celo Developer Guild and technical partners such as Tatum and Ape Unit. This will enable Web2 founders...

The Standard Chartered bank announced a €104 million of social loan financing for the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, to rehabilitate a critical transport route in the South of the West African country.

The funds go towards upgrading a stretch of the ‘coastal’ road that connects the country’s two main port cities, Abidjan and San Pedro, for a 93 km section between the towns of Dabou and Grand Lahou. The project includes improving the drainage and wastewater network to reduce the risk of flooding...

Jumia has announced the appointment of Juan Seco as the new CEO for Jumia Kenya. He takes over the mantle from Betty Mwangi who is leaving to pursue another big impact opportunity that has presented itself. 

Betty was appointed Jumia Kenya CEO in November last year, taking over from former CEO Sam Chappatte who had been at the company since 2016. During her appointment, Jumia said Betty will focus on accelerating corporate growth as the..

DataMuse, an audience, media and tech company and Criteo, the commerce media company are joining forces to enable Africa’s marketers and media owners drive better commerce outcomes.

Under this partnership, DataMuse will become Criteo’s preferred partner making the company’s Commerce Media Platform, a suite of products that activates the world’s largest set of commerce data, available to its clients on the African continent. Available in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda first, the partnership is planned to expand to further...

TikTok has launched product features and completed in-market activities to support its vision to help its community access factual and authoritative information about the Kenyan general elections ahead of 9 August.

These efforts are part of TikTok's commitment to curb misinformation in the lead up to the elections and ensure that information is disseminated responsibly. TikTok believes in collaboration with various stakeholders, to help strengthen its efforts to protect against harm and misuse on its platform...

Rotana, one of the leading hotel management companies in the region with over 100 properties across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Turkey, today announced the signing of the management agreement for the Luxor Rotana.

This luxury five-star resort in Egypt’s historic city is set to open in Q4 2023 catering to business and leisure travellers. Located in the heart of the “world's greatest open-air museum”, this stunning new property will be in close...

SAP Africa has announced the appointment of Sandi de Souza as its new Chief Financial Officer for the Africa region.

Cathy Smith, Managing Director at SAP Africa, says: "Sandi has been an integral part of our organisation's financial operations for more than a decade, where she has led various transformation initiatives while playing a pivotal role in supporting our business as we drive digital transformation across the African continent. We wish her well in her new...

To improve access to affordable, sustainable residential housing in South Africa, IFC announced an investment to support South African residential property developer, Alleyroads, to build over 1,000 rental apartment units in the Johannesburg area.

IFC's 325 million South African rand (about $20.2 million) loan to Alleyroads will help the company finance construction of the apartments, which are aimed at lower-to-middle income households with an average annual salary of about...

Bank of Baroda has signed an asset finance deal with Deluxe Motors  that will see the lender finance up to 90% of all Ashok Leyland trucks and buses.

In a bid to ease the financial load in the current business environment, new and repeat customers will in addition enjoy discounted loan facility fees. The Small and Micro Enterprise sector, which is the largest employer in Kenya, will be the biggest beneficiary of this unique financing partnership, which will run for the next one year. The partnership will offer...

SunFunder has been acquired by Mirova, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers, to launch a solar energy debt financing fund, with an investment capacity of $500 million through about 70 projects spread over Africa, Asia and Latin America. The first closing could take place by the end of the year.

Joining forces with Mirova comes 10 years after SunFunder was founded to offer financing solutions for the decentralised solar energy sector in Africa, in order to achieve direct impact at the intersection of climate change and inequality...

Proparco and Ascent Rift Valley Fund II, an East African private equity fund have announced the acquisition of a majority equity stake in Diani Beach Hospital Limited (“DBH”), a healthcare provider on Kenya’s South Coast.

On Proparco’s side, the investment is made under the FISEA+ initiative, a high-impact investment facility dedicated to supporting MSMEs in Africa owned by Proparco’s parent company, the French Development Agency (“AFD”). Founded...

Baker Hughes and Petrosafe, a subsidiary of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), announced a contract that will mark the first deployment of Baker Hughes’ flare.IQ technology in refinery operations in Egypt to help reduce emissions from oil and gas flaring operations.

This initial phase of a broader flare recovery partnership will be implemented at the APC Refinery in Alexandria. The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MoPMR) aims to reduce emissions and improve the...

Decom Engineering (Decom) has secured two contracts worth more than £300,000 in the North Sea and offshore West Africa, further strengthening its reputation as a leader in decommissioning services.

The Northern Irish company had designed and developed a range of cold cutting saws which are deployed on a variety of energy sector decommissioning projects which require pipelines and associated infrastructure to be safely removed. The UK Continental Shelf contract is a conductor recovery...

Cyberextortion remains an ongoing threat in sub-Saharan Africa with data leakages and targeted attacks in top two positions; Growing investment into connectivity and IoT increasing the cybercrime attack surface; There is a linear relationship between GDP and cybercrime.

The KnowBe4 and IDC Impact of Cyberextortion on Africa report released in June 2022 has revealed a complex cybercrime landscape in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with data leakages, insider threats, malicious emails and targeted...

It has been popularly believed that the world of business is a world of men. In the past women played a supportive role in business affairs, while young people and women taking meaningful business strides were almost non-existent.

In a way, it was considered inappropriate for women, married or otherwise, to engage in business activities. Young people in business were similarly dismissed, considered not mature and experienced enough to have credible business acumen...

After discussions with a variety of advisory and investment institutions, and to further attract investment to projects, the African Business Roundtable Secretariat in association with Afreximbank has designed the “Project Preparation Masterclass”.

This masterclass will equip participants with the basic understanding and need for proper project preparation as key steps towards the presentation of bankable projects to financiers and introduce participants to the critical project...

Cloud OnBoard is a free, instructor-led training event, that gives you a headstart on your journey to developing on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Through a combination of presentations and technical demos, you’ll learn all about virtual machines, containers, applications, big data, and machine learning. What you choose to build next, is up to you! Cloud OnBoard Core Infrastructure is best suited to solution architects, software developers, and systems administrators. Bring your laptop and come ready to learn...

The Africa Trade Expo (TATE) presents direct access to African buyers whose main aim is to source the latest products, establish partnerships, and conclude import/export deals. TATE is an ongoing virtual trade show for African businesses to network, collaborate, and enter into partnerships with international manufacturers and exporters. Present your new opportunities, network, build relationships and grow your business in African markets...

Future Foods is a virtual meeting place for importers, F&B managers, retail category buyers, owner-operators, agents, and distributors from across Africa’s diverse and booming market to come to conferences, to network, meet exhibitors, source products, new ingredients, retail shelf-ready products, and the latest processing, packaging, and logistics solutions. Future Foods connects attendees exhibitors across the...

Unicaf is an online and blended learning higher education platform that is dedicated to making higher education of international standard accessible, by offering scholarship opportunities to professionals and young school leavers.

What are scholarship opportunities?

A scholarship could be defined as financial aid that relieves the burden of tuition fees and living costs that students and families have to pay to secure a place in secondary and tertiary education. Considering the rising costs of student expenses and debts, we could nowadays describe education...

Greater access to online learning for women can boost economic opportunities for them, such as jobs and new skills, while potentially adding up to $14 billion in value to the adult post-secondary online education market in emerging markets by 2026, according to a report from IFC.

The study, Women and Online Learning in Emerging Markets, developed in partnership with Coursera and the European Commission, reports that since the onset of the pandemic, about one-third of the women learners surveyed in Egypt...

The massive surge in cybercrime, the ever-increasing number of threat vectors, and a critical skills shortage has left organizations feeling more vulnerable to cyberattacks than ever before.

With exponentially more ransomware incidents being reported than there are skilled cybersecurity professionals available, progressive businesses are looking to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to close the gap. Every day more and more people and businesses are held to ransom...

Already renowned as a global tourism and investment destination, Cape Town is also becoming one of the best cities in the world for digital nomads.

In July 2021 the South African city placed 16^th on a list of countries 71 countries identified by global housing rental platform Nestpick as a mecca for globe-trotting remote workers, besting New York, Athens and Barcelona for cost of living, infrastructure, leisure activities and overall liveability. It was also ranked 42nd in the world on international travel...

Estimates suggest that the elderly worldwide lose more than USD$3 billion (around R48 billion) each year to online fraudsters. In a world focused on communicating with the digital native Generation Z and tech-savvy Millennials, who were born into the digital era, are we leaving the elderly out of the conversation, especially when it comes to online security?

Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of cybersecurity firm ESET Southern Africa says that although the younger generations still form an easy and larger target audience for fraudsters, as technology advances and more services move online, more...

For the longest time, traditional banks required their customers to conduct all their transactions in person. And while the rise of ATMs did provide consumers with an alternative way of transacting, people still had to go out of their way to find these machines whenever they needed them.

Nowadays consumers can enjoy easy access to online banking services instead of having to go to a physical branch or an ATM. As such, many modern customers actively look for financial institutions that allow them to transact primarily...

Sub-Saharan Africa’s loan market had a slow start to this year but is showing resilience and is set to continue to grow, offering favourable opportunities for the region’s sovereign and corporate borrowers as well as for investors.

The market dynamics are being shaped by global geo-political and macro-economic factors, particularly the ongoing war in Ukraine and rapidly rising inflation and interest rates in advanced markets. They are shaped too by the dynamics between the private loan market, and the public bond...

A report released  by the Climate Policy Initiative finds that Africa needs approximately USD 2.8 trillion, or USD 250 billion each year, between 2020 and 2030 to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The study shows that total annual climate finance flows in Africa for 2020, domestic and international, were only USD 30 billion, just 12% of the amount needed. The financing gap is significant: All African countries together have a GDP of USD 2.4 trillion (World Bank 2021), implying that 10% of Africa’s...

Africa is the place to be if you want to discover and support new ideas. According to a Substack newsletter titled Africa: The Big Deal, the continent was the recipient of startup deals worth a combined $4.27 billion, spread across more than 800 deals, each worth $100 000 or more.

This number indicates a year-on-year increase of more than 73%, much higher than 2020’s YoY increase of 25%, with 12 deals alone accounting for $1.9 billion in value. But a startup ecosystem is only as good as the technology that enables it...

According to the International Monetary Fund, Nigeria is being pushed to the brink by inflation. Other African economies find themselves in the same situation, but Nigeria’s plight becomes more distressing due to its sheer size and population.

An evaluation of the past few weeks have given little reason for celebration, as most industries are struggling to stay afloat given the odds facing the country’s infrastructure. The naira is in free decline, adversely affecting dollar availability, which in turn generates a problem for travelers – no dollars for travel...