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The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (Savca) has released its Venture Capital Industry Survey (pdf). Some interesting numbers: number of reported South African VC deals rose from 114 deals in 2016 to 159 in 2017, VC sector invested a total of R1.16-billion (~$78,424,792.80) in startups and early-stage companies and average deal size increased from R7.6-million (~$513,817.61) in 2016 to R8.3-million (~$561,229.82) last year. VentureBurn has more.

Jaguar is partnering with SA-based electric vehicle company GridCars to build out an EV charging network in South Africa. The plan is to deploy 82 new charging stations across the country and at every Jaguar Land Rover dealership. The network will go live in November 2018. 

Following the launch of Apple’s latest range of flagship smartphones (which have an eSim feature), South African telcos MTN and Vodacom have announced that they are working on eSim support. Apple’s new iPhones feature eSIM technology – a dual-SIM set-up consisting of a single physical SIM and one eSIM.

Ecobank Research has released a report (pdf) on the prices of mobile Internet across Africa and the verdict? Data is most expensive in Africa than anywhere else in the world – both in real and income-relative terms. The report also found that a higher number of mobile network operators (MNOs) in a country often meant that data was relatively cheaper than in countries with less number of MNOs. 

Portuguese renewable energy company, RVE.SOL, has closed a €2.5 million Series A financing round led by French-based Egis and South Africa’s G7 Renewable Energies Ltd with participation of original seed Investors InnoEnergy and RKW to bring RVE.SOL’s patented, pay-as-you-go minigrid “Kudura” to rural communities in Kenya. The company plans to reach 15K people and create at least 20 community jobs by 2020 with the money. 

US and Europe-based educational charity, Camara Education, has partnered with Dell and Computer Aid to setup solar powered labs and computer classrooms in two schools in Kenya. Techmoran has more. 

“Tanzania’s government is casting itself as the nation’s sole custodian of data” by Abdi Latif Dahir, for Quartz Africa. 

If you’re in South Africa, applications are now open for The Chivas Venture 2019. More info and details here. 

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