Senegalese mobile money platform Wave has secured $137 million in debt financing, led by Rand Merchant Bank, with support from British International Investment (BII), Finnfund, and Norfund, according to TechCabal. The funding will enable the company to expand its operations, allowing it to continue serving underserved communities across Africa. What does Wave do? Founded in 2018 by Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, Wave serves over 20 million monthly active users through a network of more than 150,000 agents and a team of 3,000 employees across eight markets in West Africa.
A group of British Caribbean professionals has launched the Caribbean Tech Collective, an initiative designed to bring together Caribbean founders, professionals, and investors in the tech industry, according to The Voice. The Caribbean Tech Community Only 4% of people in the tech industry identify as Black in the UK, with Africans making up a significant amount of that number. The Voice reported that tech startups receive under 0.1% of global venture capital funding in the Caribbean. In 2023, venture capital investment in Caribbean tech just reached $215 million, and there
Better Auth, an authentication tool, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Peak XV, Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One, according to TechCrunch. Bereket Engida, the self-taught programmer from Ethiopia and founder of the tool has built what some developers believe is that the best authentication tool to date. Engida’s jounrey to building Better Auth Engida told TechCrunch that he had built the entire product in Ethiopia before coming to the US. He started programming at 18 after a friend declined to help him create an e-commerce search
Museums in the West tend to have one thing in common: displaying artifacts from countries that aren’t theirs. Now you can virtually reclaim these artifacts. At the Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, Nyamakop game studio recently announced the launch of its latest project, Relooted, a side-scrolling puzzle platformer where users can join a group of thieves who reclaim stolen artifacts from Western museums and return them to their respective countries of origin. How do you play Relooted? The game is set in an African Futurism-inspired 21st century, during a time
Desange Kuenihira, a former refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been announced as UNHCR’s featured storyteller. After being forced to flee violence in the DRC, she found safety in a UNHCR-supported refugee camp in Uganda. Now, Kuenihira, a graduate of the University of Utah, has resettled in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is the author of Undefeated Woman. This book speaks about her refugee journey. Kuenihira creating unDEfeated In 2020, Kuenihira founded unDEfeated, a nonprofit organization that provides educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for girls and women facing severe financial hardship in
The Financial Times has released its ranking of the fastest-growing African countries. The ranking, now in its fourth year, revealed that Nigerian and South African companies dominate the list, with 79 businesses from both countries featured. This speaks to the size and entrepreneurial depths of both economies, according to the FT. It also shows that businesses from smaller countries are struggling to build a continental presence. Nigerian companies on the list The top three companies on the list are Nigerian: Omniretail Inc., PalmPay Ltd, and Remedial Health Inc. PalmPay is
Workplace surveillance in the Global South is on the rise, according to a new report by Coworker.org, a labor rights nonprofit based in New York. Technologies for tracking and managing staff workers are expanding in scale and sophistication in more than 150 startups and regional companies based in Kenya, Nigeria, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and India, researchers said. The term “Little Tech” was made popular by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which argues that excessive regulation was stifling innovation. The Coworker.org report found that the Little Tech ecosystem, which primarily consists of unregulated, venture
Nahom Worku, a 21-year-old Ethiopian student at York University, is one of Apple’s Swift Student Challenge winners thanks to his innovative educational application, Access Ed. His app provides students in Ethiopia with consistent internet access, enabling them to utilize educational tools, according to Apple. Worku’s inspiration Growing up in Ethiopia, Worku frequently experienced unreliable internet access and observed the scarcity of quality education among many students. His app, Playground AccessEd, has solutions for both issues. So, he created an application that stores all user data and learning materials locally on
Ankor AI, a startup founded by Kyle Rowley, has just raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Upfin, according to Tech Funding News. Juni, Pleo, Moss, and Klarna also participated in the funding round. Former basketball player Rowley founded the Swedish fintech company after spending four years working with different finance teams. During this time, he observed the challenges of accessing financial data, particularly for e-commerce brands seeking credit or a precise cash flow. “I met smart operators who knew exactly what needed to be done, but
South African tech academy WeThinkCode_ has been awarded $2 million in funding from Google’s charitable arm, Google.org, to expand its AI training programs. The programs will provide 12,000 learners in South Africa and Kenya with the necessary tools to succeed in the job market. There is a significant digital skills gap on the continent, with 90% of companies being negatively impacted by the lack of AI skills, according to a recent SAP report. WeThinkCode_ bridges the gap by providing training to unemployed youth from low-income backgrounds, helping them become software engineers. WeThinkCode_’s funding from
