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Of course, the closure announcement was a big shock to everyone since Disha had reportedly bootstrapped to more than 20,000 users and had claimed to have a monthly growth rate of about 100 percent. No one expected this would happen, but as with most startups – resources are a significant problem, and a lack of them can mean great companies fall through the gap. The Nigeria-based platform allows digital creators to curate, sell digital content, create portfolios, and receive payments from their audience globally. This is a  $100 billion economy.

MFS Africa, an inter-operability hub connecting mobile network operators across the continent through a single API,  has raised $100 million in a Series C round. That’s a pretty significant number for a Series C funding round, and it’s split between $70 million equity and $30 million debt. Private equity fund AfricInvest FIVE co-led the round with existing investors Goodwell Investments and LUN Partners Group. New investors CommerzVentures, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, and Endeavor Harvest joined in while ShoreCap III returned as an existing investor with other funds. For someone who spent more than

A Black-owned startup providing non-intrusive audio ads within mobile games has just raised $14M in its series A round. Makers Fund and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. Also participating in the fundraising was the Sequoia Scout Program and Google. The total investment for AudioMob to date is now at $16 million.  From kicking off in 2020, founders Christian Facey, CEO, and Wilfrid Obeng, CTO, have seen recent client successes with artists including Ed Sheeran and Nas alongside brands like Intel, Jeep, and KitKat who all saw relative metric achievements

A new initiative from the Greater Augusta Black Chamber of Commerce Foundation hopes to help Black start-up owners navigate starting a small firm, with a new program providing training and grants of $3,000 for 25 Augusta area entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurship training program already has several business owners hoping to participate. The 25 initial participants will go through four weeks of training and six weeks of coaching, learning everything from record-keeping and insurance to marketing and risk management. According to Yahoo, it’s funded with $125,000 from Bank of America, partnering with the Greater Augusta

Less than half of Britain’s Black business owners – 43 percent – trust banks to support their interests, a new survey has revealed. The report, entitled ‘Black British In Business and Proud’, highlights the issue of structural racism in terms of accessing capital, and its impact on Black business owners. The research, which was sponsored by Lloyds Bank and undertaken by Savanta, surveyed 808 participants from Black communities in Britain – 345 of whom were Black business owners. It revealed that Black business owners are 21% more likely to be self-financed than

Google has teamed up with the University of Nairobi and Africa Centre for Advanced Technology to honor the 71st birthday of Professor Duncan Okoth Okombo in their latest Doodle illustrated by Kenyan artist Joe Impressions. The Doodle of Okombo was featured on Google’s homepage. His contributions throughout his lifetime, spanning 66 years, have pinned him as the founder of African sign language studies.  In addition, the University of Nairobi held a virtual commemoration on the University of Nairobi’s YouTube Channel from 11.30 am. Speaking during the virtual commemoration the Vice-Chancellor, University of Nairobi, Prof. Stephen G. Kiama,

A Black-Owned startup that’s solving the problem of “interacting with and processing lien information on properties” has been awarded a  $25,000 grand prize at the Endeavors Pitch Competition. Lien Library aims to provide a new experience in accessing, monitoring and gathering liens on properties. The firm, founded by Haitian native Macdeur Alabre, was created while encountering issues with lien processing during his time working for the city of North Miami. The 27-year-old was completing his master’s in business administration and using his programming and financial skills he created his system that he subsequently pitched

Like many industries, the tech sector still has some way to go in addressing diversity and bias issues and although there has been some progress with big companies like Google creating initatives specifically for minority communities – the work shouldn’t and doesn’t stop there. After diverse intake in companies – what roles are they being given, the salary disparity once in the role, the treatment among colleagues and the handling of racism allegations. We’ve heard countless of stories of Black employees and their allies being sidelined for speaking out against

Rapper IDK and Credit Karma are teaming up to encourage financial management, literacy, and the importance of credit. There will be an opportunity for business owners and those seeking to clear debt to secure a $10,000 prize to pay off the outstanding debt by competing in a contest. Participants who tap in will need to share their stories on how they collected debt and what steps they are implementing to eliminate their debt.  This needs to be done for the chance to be one of five people to win $10,000 to be used

A 17-year-old student at Iowa City West High School has invented color-changing sutures to detect infection and is now set on getting it patented. Working with an eye on equity in global health, Daisy Taylor hopes that the color-changing sutures will someday help patients detect surgical site infections as early as possible so that they can seek medical care when it has the most impact. Daisy began working on the project back in October 2019, after her chemistry teacher shared information about state-wide science fairs including the Science Talent Search

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