Blog Posts

These Forge cofounders just raised $5 million to work on a new, still-stealth investing startup Sohail Prasad and Samvit Ramadurgam met during Y Combinator's 2012 summer batch and went on to cofound Forge, a platform that enables accredited investors and institutions to buy and sell private company shares. In May, Forge raised $150 million in new funding. Forge — formerly known as Equidate — has exploded in popularity as demand for private company stock has soared. Since its incept.

Nguvu Health, Chekkit, and four other Nigerian startups have been selected for Google for Startups Accelerator 2021 The Google for Startups Accelerator is taking place virtually for the second year in a row, with startups from across Africa joining its cohort. Nigerian startups dominate this year's cohort, accounting for six of the fifteen startups selected. South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tunisia make up the remaining nine. The number of Nigerian startups selected decreased .

Joyride has raised a $3.7 million seed round Joyride, a Toronto-based startup that provides white label apps, back-end analytics, and multi-modal fleet management for shared micromobility startups, has raised $3.7 million in seed funding to expand its reach to small, local operators. Since its inception in 2014, the company, which operates in over 160 markets on every continent except Antarctica, has primarily been able to generate enough revenue to sustain its operations. Joyride will use the.

Apollo receives $1 million in debt financing to assist small-scale farmers Pula, a Kenyan insurtech startup specializing in digital and agricultural insurance with the goal of derisking millions of smallholder farmers across Africa, has raised $6 million in a Series A round. TLcom Capital, a Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, led the round, with nonprofit Women's World Banking also participating. Pula previously raised $1 million in seed funding in 2018 from Rocher Participations, w.

Holy Grail secures a $2.7 million seed funding round to develop modular carbon capture devices The founders of Holy Grail, a two-year-old Mountain View, California-based startup, are taking a micro approach to solving the outsized problem of carbon capture. The startup is developing a modular and small direct air carbon capture device, in contrast to the dozens of projects underway in the United States and abroad to capture CO2 from large, centralized emitters such as power plants or industria.

SD Africa Investments Makes a $4.5 Million Investment in Nithio FI FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi), the investing arm of FSD Africa, has invested US$4.5 million in Nithio FI, a renewable energy financing intermediary focused on the Pay as You Go (PAYG) off-grid solar sector, to provide households and small businesses in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda with reliable and sustainable renewable energy solutions. Nithio Holdings is an artificial intelligence-enabled energy finance platform whose mission .

Coven Works collaborates with Shecluded to provide financing options for 1,000 women  To encourage women in Nigeria to pursue careers in technology, Coven Works Inc, a US-based artificial intelligence educational firm, has partnered with Shecluded to provide easy access to financing options for women interested in Data Science, Chatbot Engineering, and Cloud & A.I. Women face enormous barriers, but they are not insurmountable. As a result of this collaboration, women across Nigeria (b.

Sub-Saharan Africa adds 79 million new mobile money accounts this year For more than a decade, Sub-Saharan Africa has been at the forefront of the global mobile money industry. In 2020, the region is expected to maintain its dominance following a 43 percent increase in new accounts, according to a new GSMA report. As predicted in last year's State of the Industry report, Africa's registered accounts easily exceeded the half-billion mark. Sub-Saharan Africa added 79 million new accounts in the .

Nigeria Prepares for 5G Deployment  Following the Senate investigative hearing that gave Fifth Generation (5G) technology a clean bill of health, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has taken a significant proactive regulatory step by establishing a committee to develop the Information Memorandum (IM) for the auction of the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum band that will be used for the country's early deployment of 5G services. Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, NCC's Executive Vice Chairma.

Google announces the launch of three new initiatives Google has reaffirmed its commitment to Africa's startup ecosystem by announcing a new Google for Startups Accelerator (GFSA) Africa class, as well as the launch and open application period for a new $3 million Black Founders Fund (BFF) Africa programme. In addition, it announced a $3 million grant from Google.org to the Tony Elumelu Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization dedicated to empowering young entrepreneurs across all 54 Af.