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12 – 10 – 2018

Good morning, people!

South African telco giant Telkom started operation in 1991; in that year the company employed over 67,000 people. But as the years went by, competition emerged and technologies advanced, putting pressure on the company and consequently, a steady decline in the number of employees. As of March 2018, Telkom employee count had dropped to 10,143. MyBroadband explores this decline over the decades.

Hetzner South Africa, a web hosting provider, suffered a security breach on the 5th of October which exposed customer details including names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, identity numbers, VAT numbers, and bank account numbers. This is the second security breach at Hetzner in the past 12 months, the first happened in November 2017 and reportedly affected over 40,000 customers.

In a follow-up report on the Nigerian OEM Omatek Ventures, Techpoint states that “the trouble is not yet over” for the company. The Bank of Industry (BOI), which Omatek reportedly owes ₦5.95 billion, has also refused to yield possession of Omatek’s seized property, despite the first case being struck out by a Federal High Court. Catch up on the story that led to this point.

The first smartphone maker in Egypt, Silicon Industries Corporation (SICO), is planning to expand across Africa. The company says by the end of 2018 or early 2019 it plans to start selling phones in Kenya, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique and Ghana. SICO was set up last year with a capital of $8.4 million, per Reuters.

Kola Aina announced that Ventures Platform has invested in Thank U Cash, a product that allows merchants offer loyalty rewards to their customers. Yele Bademosi disclosed in August that Microtraction also made an investment in the company. 

Crossfin, an African fintech holding company, acquired a majority stake in South African payment solution company Crossgate. The move, according to Crossgate CEO David de Coning has “established the business to drive financial inclusion” through the electronification of South Africa’s R1.3-trillion payments ecosystem.

The Sun Exchange, a blockchain-based solar micro-leasing startup based in South Africa, has received a $500,000 seed investment from Alphabit, a US hedge fund. Liam Robertson CEO of Alphabit, which launched last year, said he’s convinced this will be “one of the best equity investments Alphabit has made to date”.

Liquid Telecom is partnering with Microsoft to host Uganda’s first cloud event Azure Accelerator Conference. The event which holds today in Kampala is aimed at “accelerating the use of cloud services across Africa.”

Moustapha Cisse, head of Google AI in Ghana is calling on interested candidates to apply for the 2019 AI residency program. Find out more and apply here.

From TechCabal

An African Ride-Hailing Timeline

Africa’s Biggest Economies Largely Depend On Fossil Fuels But That Is Gradually Changing

 

That’s All!

Have a lovely weekend.
 
– Samuel

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