Uber today announced a significant milestone — it has completed 1 billion rides across all its markets in Africa. This milestone for Uber is coming nearly a decade after the mobility tech company set up shop on the continent in Johannesburg, South Africa. It has expanded to 30 cities including 21 in South Africa — its most dominant market, four cities each in Kenya and Nigeria, and two in Ghana. “Since entering the market in 2013, we have created over 6 million economic opportunities in over 50 cities across SSA
This year, six Black chief executives sit atop Fortune 500 companies, making up just over 1% of businesses on the 2022 ranking. Fortune magazine described the figure as “a noteworthy increase” from last year when only five Black CEOs ran Fortune 500 companies. But is it really? While this figure might seem like an amazing milestone to some, there’s still a long way to go. According to Investopedia, only 20 S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies feature a LatinX CEO — or, only 4 percent. That said, that’s still a greater number
A Black marketing specialist has taken to Linkedin to complain about his experience applying for a job at Monzo Bank and has questioned whether the firm’s job application process is racist. Before explaining what happened, Charles Oben wrote ‘Does Monzo Bank have an application process that is intentionally racist?’. Sharing his experience, he said: “I applied to Monzo late last week, for their Growth Marketing Manager position. I spent a lot of time on my application (one of my responses is over 5 pages long), so I was rather dismayed
Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye feels like a mother of two. Her entrepreneurial child, Ami Colé, celebrated its first birthday a few months ago, while her actual child, which arrived in February, is only a couple of months old. N’Diaye-Mbaye, 32, launched the clean makeup brand designed for women of color during the pandemic, and now it’s projected to bring in $2.5 million in revenues by the end of the year, according to reports by BeautyIndependent. It secured over $1 million in pre-seed funding. Katherine Power, Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Hannah Bronfman, Henry Davis, Greycroft,
Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall are the sister duo and creators behind QuickHire, a hiring platform that connects workers to service and skilled-trade jobs. In November, QuickHire raised $1.41 million in an oversubscribed round of funding, making Gladney and Muhwezi-Hall the first Black women in Kansas to raise over $1 million for a startup, according to AfroTech. The round is a pretty big deal because Black female startup founders received just 0.34% of the total $147 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. startups through the first half of 2021, according to Crunchbase. QuickHire,
Grammy award-winning artist, Miguel, has just been announced as the newest Global Creative Director for T3MP0, a digital studio that creates web3 communities for A-List talent and brands. He is reportedly the first musical artist of “his stature” to be involved in creating a web3 studio from the ground up, according to the company’s press release. As T3MP0’s creative director, Miguel will extend his extensive collaboration history into partnering with the world’s biggest talent and brands in the web3 space. “We are very excited to support Miguel’s creative vision for the
Investment and advisory firm Pendulum, which funds and consults with businesses founded by people of color and has high-profile clients, including former President Barack Obama, is getting a new infusion of capital from Merchant bank BDT & Co. BDT specializes in providing advice and long-term capital through its affiliated funds to help the family- and founder-led businesses pursue their strategic and financial objectives. Husband and wife duo Robbie and D’Rita Robinson serve as chief executive and chief operating officer of the firm, which is reported to be staffed by people
South African educational technology (edtech) startup FoondaMate has secured $2 million seed funding in a round led by LocalGlobe, a UK-based venture capital firm, to drive uptake of its WhatsApp and Facebook-based learning chatbot across the globe. How does it work? Foondamate helps students with their revision by giving them immediate answers to questions and access to revision papers, while also guiding them in responses to questions. It aims to level the playing field in education by empowering the 345 million+ students who currently have limited access to internet-enabled education
CarePoint, a Black-owned technology-driven healthcare startup that seeks to make healthcare accessible, has just raised a $10 million bridge round to accelerate its growth across Africa. How does it work? Patients are able to access care virtually through CarePoint’s MyCareMobile app, which links them to diverse services through teleconferencing, including consultations with their doctors, test results, and 24-hour emergency response. The funding round was led by TRB Advisors and brings the total funding raised by CarePoint to $30 million. It follows an $18 million Series A round announced in November last year.
Colourintech, working with Meta, found that Black students and professionals face many barriers when advancing in the tech industry. To try to understand the scope of the matter, the research team looked at 2,000 individuals in tech – asking questions about finding a job, getting hired, advancing, and being supported in their careers. More than 60% of Black professionals encounter barriers to entering the tech profession, the new figures unveiled as it shone a light on the hurdles still being faced in the industry. Saloni Shah, a student at Imperial
