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| A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR |
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| African Alliance’s Investment Plan offers you an added advantage over saving your money in a bank. You earn a significant amount of interest and enjoy an additional life cover of up to N1,000,000. This amount is sent to whomever you nominate if you pass away during the investment period, whether the insurance term is complete or not. So whether you plan to travel the world, further your education, own a house or start a business, the Alliance Investment plan can help you get there! Begin planning for a secure future today. Send an email to info@africanallianceplc.com, call 0806 630 9476 or visit www.africanallianceplc.com for more details. You can also follow African Alliance Insurance Plc on Instagram or Twitter. |
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| Tunis-based investment and financial services company AfricInvest and Cathay Innovation, the venture capital (VC) fund of Paris-based French-Chinese private equity firm Cathay Capital, will make investments between €3 million and €15 million within the next three years in startups across Africa. The Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund is expected to invest in 15 to 20 startups within this period with particular focus on fintech, logistics, artificial intelligence, agritech and edtech startups. The funders are looking to leverage their existing networks in Tunis, Lagos, Abidjan, Nairobi, Casablanca, Algiers, Cairo, and soon Johannesburg to broker deals but also welcome applications from interested startups. The fund’s first investment is likely to occur some time this year. |
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Bitcoin wallet and merchant payment startup Centbee has raised £1 million from Ayra Ventures founder Calvin Ayre. The deal was facilitated by blockchain advisory, research and development firm nChain which last year in January took an equity stake in Centbee. The size of that deal was not disclosed. The bitcoin wallet company says the investment will be used to develop and scale its products this year. Investor, Ayre, is also the founder of online gambling and entertainment company, Bodog. Because of its volatile nature, investments in bitcoin is still considered very high-risk.
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From May 14-17, 2019, the fifth edition of the Transform Africa Summit, a Smart Africa flagship event, will take place in Kigali, Rwanda. Over 4,000 participants including Heads of State, First Ladies, Ministers, Private and Public Sector Stakeholders, Investors, Industry Leaders, will take part in the summit themed “Boosting Africa’s Digital Economy”. Among those scheduled to speak at the event is Rwandan President, Paul Kagame as well as Humanoid Robot, Sophia. To find out more and to register to attend, please visit the website here.
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Today, the British High Commission to Nigeria and EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access) will welcome fintech operators, investors, policymakers and hubs to an interactive session to explore the ways in which increased funding and enhanced regulatory harmony can grow the Nigerian Fintech ecosystem. Also, EFInA will announce the winners of its $2 million Fintech Challenge Fund; fintech companies who have built solutions to improve financial inclusion among low-income earners in Nigeria. The event is only open to registered participants, however, you can join the livestream on Twitter HERE and HERE or follow on YouTube HERE.
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Paystack has announced its partnership with Lambda School to provide a full stack developer education to candidates from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa at no upfront tuition cost. Lambda School is a 9 month, immersive online program in a variety of fields which all come at no upfront tuition costs. According to the school’s website, students only begin to pay back tuition fees when they start earning upwards of US$50K. Paystack has offered to hire graduates of the training courses as well as link graduates with Paystack merchants seeking to hire local talent. Find out more and apply here.
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| Nigeria’s Co-Creation Hub and Google for Startups have announced the launch of PitchDrive II, a three week, five-city Asian tech tour across Singapore, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. PitchDrive II will enable African startups take key learnings from the Asian technology market and apply them locally to improve their businesses by leveraging on the network of suppliers or manufacturing partners that the tour will expose them to. The first edition of the tour happened in 2017. According to CcHUB, over US$4.5 million was raised by participating startups, alongside market expansion into new cities. Applications are open for African deep tech or hardware-based startups looking to forge international partnerships with Asian manufacturing or supply companies and raise additional funding. Find out more about the application criteria and apply here. |
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Four South African students have won prizes in their respective categories at the 39th Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition (BYSCC). The students won a silver medal in the biomedical science category for a project seeking to provide clearer information about food labels to consumers; a silver medal in the environmental science and engineering category for light-sensitive headlights; and two silver medals in the biochemistry and molecular biology category for their research into the interference of chemicals in chlorine-containing swimming pools. The South African government has, in recent times, begun making concerted efforts towards science and technology developments in the country to enable its young population compete favourably in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
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| Yesterday, we shared news about the Farmcrowdy Group partnership focused on livestock production and trading. The company in question is Livestock247.com and not Livestock237.com as mentioned in our digest yesterday. We apologize for this error. |
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| Five African fintech startups will each receive US$40, 000 from Founders Factory Africa alongside a chance to participate in a customised six-month accelerator programme. Launched in 2015, Founders Factory, an incubation and acceleration programme based in London and currently present in Johannesburg, plans to scale 100 disruptive tech startups across Africa over the next five years. Nigeria’s Schoolable and EazyHire; Kenyan LipaLater, Ghanaian Kudigo, and investment news platform Digest Africa are the five startups taking part in the acceleration programme. |
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| An April report by data analysis firm Gartner says global IT spending will jump to US$3.79 trillion in 2019, an increase of 1.1% over 2018. Data Center Systems, Communications Services, and Devices showed negative growth for 2019 while Enterprise Software and IT Services showed positive growth rates. Gartner points to currency fluctuations of the dollar as one of the reasons for the negative growth experienced in the majority of the segments in the report. The company suggests that 2020 will be a year of growth for all segments. |
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| TechCabal is pleased to introduce its first paid report, The State of Health Tech in Nigeria. This essential report looks deeply into the state of Nigeria’s health industry, the challenges facing that industry and the innovative startups working to find solutions to those challenges. The report profiles 75 active and 15 inactive health tech startups across 12 subsectors. It further examines the challenges these startups face, the opportunities in the space and makes actionable recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and regulators to consider. Get the report here. |
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