The rising African consumer-market is on the verge of blooming, and waiting to be tapped into. At the center of it all is the mobile device: a vessel that empowers the consumer by connecting them to the internet, and gives them access to the world's information and, let's not forget, (paid) content. Recognising this potential is startup Dream Mobile, a manufacturer of low-cost smart handsets for the African market. Its Dream Phones are packed with functionality and power at a ...

Adfu, online marketing company situated in Johannesburg, has recently partnered with Yookos which is the popular Africa-born social network site. The partnership aims to both increase market reach into a more defined growing African market and to drive advertising and future revenue. Adfu is part of a network of sites owned by Kagiso Media. Kagiso Digital has launched the AdFu network in 2012 to offer a range of opportunities within vertical markets to advertisers and niche publishers. The company has ...

Every1Mobile (E1M), the company that specialises in building mass audiences via mobile in sub-Saharan Africa, announced that it has raised R18-million in angel investment. The company that runs its core operations from Cape Town, operates nine mobile sites covering education, health, jobs and entertainment aimed at the 15 to 35 age group. E1M, headquartered in the UK was founded in 2010. It uses the power of its mobile-enabled social networks to attract organisations that would like to target sub-Saharan Africa's younger demographic. ...

Being an entrepreneur is hard. You quit your nice paying job with your awesome corner office to start something because your grandmother thought it was a good idea. Now you have a URL, a product and it actually might work. It's time to become a company, get investors onboard with your idea and take it to market. These and many other issues must keep entrepreneurs up at night. I recently attended the Knife Capital and AngelHub run Find, Make, Grow ...

At a time when many online newsrooms are shuttering their content behind paywalls in the wake of trickling advertising revenues, one of South Africa's premier news sites, Daily Maverick (DM), is launching free advertising packages for qualifying businesses. Following a successful trial period, Daily Maverick is launching the initiative with the aim of helping small ventures get more exposure. While digital marketing is accessible to large businesses, small businesses are often cash-strapped and forgo digital channels -- Daily Maverick reckons ...

88mph has had a busy year so far closing up its 2013 Cape Town programme, but the startup accelerator is showing no signs of slowing down as it now turns its attention to next year. The priority is to begin fundraising for the 2014 fund, and the mobile-web centric programme wants local investors to get involved before it heads off overseas on 23 June to search for international investors. The ticket size is US$15 000 to US$100 000. It might not be ...

Applications for the Bandwidth Barn entrepreneurial course programmes are closing today. The Barn focuses on providing an ecosystem to support both start-up and growth orientated SMMEs in the ICT and Creative sectors by offering business development programmes. The Entrepreneurial Development winter programmes are closing for the June intake and kick-off. The two programmes that now up for grabs are VeloCITI-Y and VeloCITI. VeloCITI-Y is designed for the idea stage entrepreneurs and aims to assist a potential entrepreneur in determining concept ...

The Google Science Fair claims to be the biggest online science fair in the world. It's tagline "90 ways to change the world," represents the 90 regional finalists of 2013. Among these, are 16-year-old South African Samantha Heyward who explores the pros and cons of Body Mass Index (BMI) calculation and a Kenyan team which looks if heat and tomatoes can produce electricity. Google's annual Science Fair aims to encourage young scientists and innovators between the ages of 13 and 18 ...

If you're planning on quitting your job anytime soon to travel the oyster that is our world, then this list will probably come in handy. On the other hand, if you’re merely interested in travel startups trying something new in emerging markets, it'll also be interesting. The web seems to be overflowing with travel and tourism startups. So much so that finding one that matters is difficult. Standing out from the rest means that entrepreneurs need to think outside of the ...

You are not Tony Stark. 500 Startups founder Dave McClure made the point quite clear during his keynote at Echelon 2013. But even if the genius behind Iron Man is cool and you are not, you can build great things on the platforms that the cool guys have been making so far. Of course, by Tony Stark, Dave is referring to guys like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. They have built great platforms with billions of ...