Emerging Markets

Africa’s innovators turn to tech to tackle transport woes

In sub-Saharan Africa, vulnerable groups face long, pricey and dangerous commutes. Now tech innovations are increasingly helping people get around affordably and safely. After…

Rwanda is first African country to join the WEF C4IR network

The Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Innovation of Rwanda, in partnership with the World Economic Forum, launched the Centre for the Fourth Industrial…

African Development Bank to stimulate African crops with $1B boost

While Africa’s food crisis has been building for some time, the conflict in Ukraine has exposed the continent’s dependence on imports. In response, the…

Pre-owned luxury goods are surprise pandemic winners

Luxity, South Africa’s omnichannel luxury brand buyer and reseller, reported 86 percent growth for the 2021/22 financial year. This brings total growth over the…

Susa Ventures leads $5M seed round to scale Powered By People

Susa Ventures led a $5 million seed round alongside Flexport Fund, Golden Ventures and JVentures that will enable global makers wholesale marketplace Powered by…

CDC Group makes first BBBEE investment in South Africa

Norway’s investment fund for developing countries, Norfund and the UK’s development finance institution (DFI), CDC Group, have commitment to invest R600 million in H1…

IBM launches Sustainability Accelerator

IBM has launched their Sustainability Accelerator, a global pro bono social impact program that applies IBM technologies, such as hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence, and…

Applications now open for health focused accelerator in Africa

The Making More Health (MMH) accelerator, organised by Ashoka, is currently in its fourth year and aims to unlock the potential for growth, impact,…

DeFi platform Goldfinch raises $25m to continue emerging market lending

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto) led a $25 million funding round that will help Goldfinch continue to offer uncollateralised DeFi loans to businesses in emerging…

[Opinion] Five values investors are looking for in 2022

Africa saw a lot of investment activity at the close of 2021, but all the millions in funding seemed to coalesce around five trends…

Action Plan for Gauteng to support innovation is underway

Innovation and entrepreneurship have been identified as key drivers of the South African economy, but challenges such as lack of funding, talent, skills and…

Global Innovation Fund invests R7m to bridge South Africa’s digital divide

The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) has invested $460 000 in Isizwe, a South African internet service provider that promotes access for low-income communities. For…

Alithea IDF announces largest gender-inclusive private equity fund in Africa

Africa’s first women-led and women-focused private equity fund, Alitheia IDF (AIF), has announced the final close of the $100 million (R1 552 898 000,00)…

MTN Nigeria ready to release RCS Business Messaging

MTN is geared to launch Rich Communications Services (RCS) Business Messaging (RBM) Services in partnership with Google and Dotgo. This will allow business to…

Naspers, Lendable and Change Ventures lead $30m Planet42 investment

South African car subscription service Planet42 secured $30 million in equity ($6m) and debt ($24m) financing. Debt venture fund Lendable doubled its initial $10…

Cape Town tumbles down Global Cities Index

This year’s edition of the Kearney Annual Global Cities report once again offers key insights on how COVID-19 and the resulting pandemic response has…

JUMO raises $120m from Fidelity and Visa in bumper funding round

Fintech start-up JUMO has raised $120 million with Fidelity, Kingsway Capital and Visa among the biggest participants in its latest round of funding. This…

Solar startup Sun Exchange secures $2.5 million investment

SA startup Sun Exchange has secured $2.5 million in convertible note financing to continue to scale its solar leasing platform. The startup secured the…

To create jobs, SA needs a tech-enablement bridge (we need Domino’s, not Google) [Opinion]

No matter your politics, everyone in South Africa can agree that we need more jobs and that we need to create more jobs now….

The City of Cape Town say it’s committed to supporting job growth

The City of Cape Town has announced that it is increasing its efforts to support the startup and enterprise sector to spur on job…

African global business services sector to grow to $19.8 billion by 2023 – research

A new report by market researcher Knowledge Executive shows Africa’s Global Business Services (GBS) is expected to grow to nearly $20 billion by 2023….

The ultimate crossover – an expert weighs in on the ‘Metaverse’ [Opinion]

The world has come a long way since 1983. On 1 January that year, the US Military switched on the packet switching TCP/IP protocol…

Transforming B2B payments could grow Africa’s local businesses [Opinion]

The World Bank estimates remittances to the Middle East and North Africa region rose by 2.3% to about $56-billion in 2020. However, global businesses…

Starlink in South Africa – Regulatory turbulence grounds Elon Musk’s satellite internet plans—for now

ASUS and AMD Launch AI-Driven Expert P Series PCs for South African SMBs

Calls vs Puts: Understanding the Two Types of Options

Africa Bridge Fund seeks to build a thriving Africa tech ecosystem

MortgageMarket and EasyEquities partner to launch EasyMortgages, unlocking a new era in home loan access for South Africans