Emmanuel Okeleji is the co-founder and CEO at SeamlessHR, a cloud-based HR and payroll technology company that recently announced its $10 million series A. His work and entrepreneurial experiences span multiple industries, including healthcare, agriculture, and education. By the end of medical school, Okeleji had gone through a Goldman Sachs investment banking internship and kicked off an incorporated software development company alongside his current co-founder, Deji Lana. One of the tools they built back in the mid to late 2000s, a software tool for cooperatives, is still in use today.
Insurtech Etap is now on a mission to expand its services across the West African country following a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Mobility 54; the venture capital arm of Toyota Tsusho and CFAO Group. Founder and CEO Ibraheem Babalola started building Etap last year when he found himself frustrated by the complexities and delays involved in purchasing insurance. “The idea itself is from being a frustrated customer; my insurance would expire and I wouldn’t get a notification to renew it…I always had to make a call to a guy
While the tech world still remains a heavily male-dominated sphere, there are a growing number of female trailblazers paving the way. Here’s a bite-sized introduction to their achievements and stories below. Anna is a technical co-founder of Lioness, the women-led sexual health startup that built the world’s first and only smart vibrator that improves understanding of sexual pleasure and body through biofeedback data. Before Lioness, Anna worked at Amazon Lab126’s concept engineer team, and helped launch the Kindle Voyage. She also teaches at Scientific Adventures for Girls, a non-profit that
Timeless London-based watch and accessories company, Vitae, reached two major milestones last year securing $1million in sales and distributed 5,000 solar lamps to Sub-Saharan school children. The solar-powered lamps were distributed in partnership with Pen to Paper Ghana, a Ghanaian non-profit that works to deliver lamps to students so that they can complete their school work with efficient lighting. But now its founder William Adoasi has just announced that the brand is launching each limited edition watch with an NFT. Talk about innovative! In a video, Adoasi said: “It’s William
Parfait, an AI and facial recognition-powered beauty technology focused on providing custom wig products to consumers, announced today a $5 million Seed round led by Upfront Ventures and Serena Ventures. Millions of Black women waste exorbitant amounts of money and time on difficult-to-install hair products that don’t properly fit or match their skin tone. While the market for manufactured hair wigs is expected to grow to $13.3 billion by 2026 according to Arizton, innovations to the products and services remain stagnant—until now. According to its founders, Parfait is uniquely suited to
Floyd Mayweather has announced the drop of a new NFT Project called Mayweverse. The project will consist of 5,000 NFTs and is set to launch on Wednesday. Fans on Twitter, however, are not pleased with the announcement and accused him of scams, taking people’s money, and abandoning projects. There will be five different NFT cards with a quantity of 1,000 available for each. In a tweet on the official Mayweverse account, it tweeted: “The mint price will be 0.3ETH bringing you maximum profit and value.” Floyd had previously launched a
The Black News Channel, a cable news station focused on serving Black viewers, ceased operations on Friday afternoon after its billionaire backer declined to provide more funding for the startup. Now it’s currently under fire after former network employees took to social media to claim they were blindsided when operations were stopped abruptly. They also claim they have been waiting weeks for their final paychecks, just to be told they would not be receiving them as promised. Founded by former GOP congressman J.C. Watts back in 2020, the network was
Wale Ayeni, the regional head of venture capital investments for the IFC in Africa, has left the International Finance Corporation (IFC), it was reported on Wednesday. Wale Ayeni wrote: “After 5+ thrilling years at the IFC, last week was my last. I cannot but be grateful for the years filled with purpose, joy, learning and growth working alongside extremely passionate and mission-driven colleagues focused on changing the narrative in emerging and frontier markets, with action, and through technology. “The wealth, breadth & depth of the experience was only possible by
ChainIDE, a firm helping develop company MVPs, and Conflux, a software delivery service for engineers, have teamed up to launch ‘The Hydra Developer Bootcamp’ for Web3 developers in Africa. The bootcamp aims to provide cohort members with hands-on blockchain 101 training, insight into the African blockchain, crypto industry, and a unique outlook on the future prospects of the Metaverse and Web 3. More than 200 people have reportedly already signed up for the event, according to TechCabal, while the first two modules have already attracted more than 500 views in
Black content creators continue to lead the way in online spaces such as Instagram – from memes, and dances to the way in which they have utilized the app for digital activism and campaigning on important issues. But for far too long – these same creators have often been cast to the side, not credited, and even paid less by advertisers and brands. A report published last year by the communications company MSL and educational organization The Influencer League stated that the pay gap between Black and white content creators
