If you’ve spent more than a minute in the African tech scene, you’ve probably heard of Ushahidi -- and the Kenyan team behind the non-profit software didn’t stop with its crisis mapping, crowd sourcing service. It went on to create iHub, a space for Nairobi’s geeks and innovators to meet, collaborate and turn their ideas and code into the next wave of exciting startups. It then rocked Kickstarter with the BRCK -- its backup generator for the internet, which is ...

Charities are taking an increasingly entrepreneurial approach to sustaining their initiatives. US-based MalaikaForLife, for example, runs an ecommerce store that stocks bracelets produced by a group of 150 women in Tanzania. The proceeds go towards providing them with a source of sustainable income and for stamping out malaria in the region. Then there's DoGoodBuyUs, a type of Etsy for charities, which stocks hundreds of charity made products. The trouble is that in order for a charity to produce these products, they ...

Traffic's a bitch, we all know that. And anyone who's been to Africa's major cities would tell you no different. The popular Twitter account that keeps Nigerians in the know with their local road news, TrafficButter, and the existing JonnyWaka app are joining forces to develop a community-driven mobile app, officially called Traffic Butter Mobile App. The team hopes to be Nigeria's go-to source for all road information by making significant investments in technology, including tools for more stress free ...

Nomanini, the company that delivers physical prepaid vouchers through its little cloud-connected box, has secured an undisclosed amount in series-B funding from Seychelles-based investment company Rockbridge Investments Limited. The latest financing brings the startup's total raised capital to over R20-million -- roughly US$2-million. The funds will enable Nomanini to expand its prepaid platform across Africa and in to other developing countries. In 2012, Nomanini raised US$600 000 in series-A funding from Netherlands based eVentures Africa Fund (eVA Fund) as well ...

There's a new South African incubator on the block and its name is Springlab, and its goal is to "foster entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa" by building highly scalable ventures. Founded by ex-Rocket Internet alum Eugen Petersen (co-founder of Zando) and Sheraan Amod (co-founder of Personera), with the help from strategic advisor Randolf Jorberg, Springlab claims some unique features to separate itself from the incubator pack. First off, Springlab co-founds every single venture it invests in -- taking them right from, as Petersen ...

Two South African tech startups recently announced their partnership to better the country's transportation industry by furthering the idea of smart cities. GoMetro and Mellowcabs will be working together to drive collaboration, awareness and adoption of the two services in major urban areas of South Africa and beyond. GoMetro provides South African commuters using the MetroRail train service with crucial information via their mobile phones. Through this new partnership, GoMetro will provide the eco-friendly taxi service Mellowcabs with a Driver App, ...

TechCabal Battlefield 2014 has come to pass, and after much hype and excitement the Nigerian startup competition ultimately looked to three ventures as the winners. Out of the 92 applicants and initial seven finalists, these are the top startups: PrepClass, who got first place, is an e-learning startup that describes itself as an online portal that helps students prepare for exams. PrepClass literally prepares students for popular tests such as the nationwide JAMB exams. PrepClass received US$20,000 and some extra goodies. In second ...

African start-ups Momentum Core and Leti Arts will this year showcase their apps optimised for Intel Architecture at Mobile World Congress. Momentum Core will showcase its Simiyu the Chicken gaming app while Leti Arts will showcase their Leti Center. The two apps were developed with support from Intel's Software Services Group in Africa which has been training developers in the last 6 months, enabling them to create and port Android apps for Intel Android devices. Urging developers across Africa to take advantage ...

"What exactly is a business plan?" a startup says to me. Life in Nigeria's booming startup scene is not like any other. "We don't really take on a lot of risk," he says to me, but the business he is running will probably hang on risks that he will have to start taking soon. A business plan is not really a fully formed idea for some of the startups I have met. I ask about business models and revenue projections -- ...

Spark, the Nigerian "company builder" founded by Jason Njoku, Bastian Gotter and Mary Remmy-Njoku (all of iROKOtv) has reason to be happy as one of its initial investments: bus ticketing website bus.com.ng has become Nigeria's largest bus travel site taking people to over 200 destinations around the country. Collaborating with more than 65 bus operators, and offering departure points in seven states in Nigeria, bus.ng.com is now also in partnership with mobile payments solution PAGA, ensuring that its offering is convenient ...