The news cycle was choked full at the TC HQ today. Yeah, that’s because the ecosystem was a flurry of activities – the blink-and-you-might-miss-it kind. Here is a low down of everything that happened today:
Paga got a $13 million dollar boost from Adlevo, Omidyar and more in its Series B
The round was led by Adlevo Capital with participation from Omidyar Network, Goodwell West Africa, Acumen Fund, and Capricorn Investment Group.
>And it needs to continue to raise
Tayo Oviosu, CEO of Paga is respected in the ecosystem, but that is not enough to shield from the brutality of an early market, nor shelter from the trade winds of globalisation that is bringing global payments players to his turf. To hold his own, he needs more money. A lot of it.
While you weren’t looking, VConnect became the largest ecommerce marketplace in Nigeria
Vconnect was a search engine for Nigerian small businesses, until recently. Now, it’s a marketplace. A – possibly – one million merchants strong marketplace.
Strive Masiyiwa, Zimbabwean businessman and founder of Econet Wireless takes shares the story. We had no idea Econet Nigeria had such a storied beginning, the kind that would make Shakespeare envious.
And this here is the mastermind:
According to Strive Masiyiwa’s account, James Ibori, the Governor of Delta State (in Nigeria) pulled the strings on the noose that hung Econet in Nigeria.
AfroStream raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Orange and other investors
AfroStream came on our radar a few months ago when it launched out of Y Combinator. At the time, TechCrunch called the website the “Netflix for Africa”. Today, it raised a round led by Orange which also promised it is going to be a hands on investor.
Econet: All these names that you are changing…
This is not unconnected with Strive’s recent telling on why the telco left Nigeria. Though the telecoms company has settled into a stable identity for a while now (and the new company is much different from the first Econet), it’s interesting to see how many times it has changed hands (and names).
How to ship from Amazon to Nigeria in 10 easy steps
Since the news broke that Amazon will now be shipping to Nigeria, Kenya and 73 other countries, there have been reactions – generally just a lot of happy folks on the internet. Well, how do you tap into the goodness of being able to ship directly to your home country? Follow this guide.
We saw the ministerial list and we are not seeing a technology minister on there
For the first time, today, details of the Nigerian president’s ministerial list were made public; twenty one names in all, but no one on the list is especially fitting for the ministerial seat, from where we are looking at it at least.
