Google has announced that it has made the first investment from its Africa Investment Fund in Ugandan super app SafeBoda. The undisclosed investment comes two months after Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced the tech giant’s intentions to commit $1 billion over the next five years in “tech-led initiatives”, which includes a $50 million Africa Investment Fund targeted at early- and growth-stage startups on the continent. SafeBoda has rarely spoken publicly of any of its funding rounds since its inception in 2017. Still, people who know the company’s dealings say it has raised over $20 million, according to TechCrunch.
According to government figures, Nigeria has been recording massive growth in its information technology sector, but only one-fifth of IT workers are women. Now aid groups are trying to help women and girls enter the IT world by teaching them about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. And despite the lack of gender diversity on investment boards in the country, the funding gap, or even an unconscious bias that has frequently been reported – many female African tech entrepreneurs continue to impact the industry remarkably. For example, a report by The Women
The Olympic star partnered with Cerebral — the leading online mental health provider — as its Chief Impact Officer (CIO) in October 2021, and now it’s been valued at more than $4 billion. InnovationMap reports that the San Francisco-based company has raised $300 million in venture capital — taking its value to $4.8 billion. The Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and fellow investors including Prysm Capital, Access Industries, WestCap Group, and ARTIS Ventures ended on December 8. The startup focuses on providing regular assessments, video or phone appointments with patients’ prescribers,
US rapper Meek Mill has announced that he will be donating $500,000 worth of Christmas gifts to Philadelphia families in need – joining him in his quest to give back to the community is Philadelphia 76ers partner Michael Rubin, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Roc Nation. The event is reportedly taking place on December 19. “We stepping BIGGER than ever this year for the youth of the city!” he wrote via Instagram before the official announcement. Holiday gifts for families will include MacBook Air laptops, Amazon Fire HD tablets, bikes and helmets,
A migrant rights group has condemned a US tech startup’s video pitch that shows a stun gun-armed drone attacking a migrant crossing the US-Mexico border. At the same time, Twitter users called the scenario depicted “atrocious”. CEO Blake Resnick recently appeared on Fox Business News to celebrate a venture capital coup: $25 million from Silicon Valley A-listers like Sam Altman and ex-LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s Next Play Venture. He told Fox Business’s Stuart Varney that Brinc’s quadcopter drones are helping police defuse dangerous hostage situations on a near-daily basis. The
Deloitte Digital has announced a new initiative with The Stepladder Foundation to provide laptops, software, and study materials to UK students enrolling in Stepladder courses. The Stepladder Foundation is a charity offering flexible approaches to learning for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic young people identified as disadvantaged. They’ve previously run programs across London, Birmingham, and the West of England- and are now focusing again on Greater London. They take referrals from schools to recruit, but some participants ‘step up’ and enroll themselves when they hear about the initiative. Their flagship programs last
Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities, led by SecondMuse Foundation and Break Through Tech, has launched a third city hub in Miami as part of Pivotal Ventures’ $50 million investment focused on diversifying the tech industry. The hub, dubbed GET Miami, will work collaboratively with the region’s tech ecosystem to propel more women, trans, and nonbinary people, particularly Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and people of color, into tech education, careers, and leadership. The company’s main blueprint is to address the challenge of inclusion by leveraging three key pillars – academia, industry, and entrepreneurship. GET Miami will
TechRise, a program from tech organization P33 that’s been hosting a weekly pitch competition this year for Chicago’s Black and Latino entrepreneurs, will return next year after a successful 2021 run. The program was launched with a $ 5 million fund to invest in startups owned by diverse entrepreneurs up and down the city in April. TechRise aims to channel more funds to minority-owned startups, which receive just 1.9% of all startup funding in Chicago, according to P33. In addition, corporate sponsors like Verizon, Discover, and Valor Equity Partners have
New York City is making a bold move by introducing a new law to combat race and gender bias in hiring processes when businesses use artificial intelligence tools to screen out job candidates. Under the new law – employers in the city will be banned from using automated employment decision tools to screen job candidates unless the technology has been subject to a “bias audit” conducted a year before using the tool. The new act passed the measure on November 10 and it takes effect on January 2, 2023. A PricewaterhouseCoopers 2017 study found
Hundreds of Black women in Georgia will receive a guaranteed monthly income of $850 to improve their mental health and address the racial wealth gap. This money has no conditions attached, meaning they could use it towards their startup costs. The In Her Hands program will grant 650 Black women below the federal poverty line the cash with no conditions attached for two years. Launching early next year and distributing more than $13 million, it is poised to be one of the US’s largest guaranteed income pilot programs. The median Black family in the U.S.
