TC Daily

TechCabal Daily – And the dip goes on and on…😭

20th May 2021
20 MAY, 2021

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Paystack Logo Unicorn

Good morning ☀️ ️

Last week, I shared a tweet of a founder who advised other African founders to buy bitcoin with money from investors after they made about $650,000 in profits from the $110,000 they invested in January.

The price of one bitcoin was close to $60,000 when he tweeted two weeks ago, yesterday it was worth $35,000, today it looks like it’s rebounding back above $40,000.

Alex spoke to many people about the painful dip and wrote about it here.

In today’s edition:

  • My Life in tech
  • Egyptian logistics company raises $6.7 million
  • The EU’s plans for African businesses
  • Recap of Google I/O

Oluremi Martins-Areola built her natural wig business online and now has customers in almost 70 countries

“I’ve always had a very interesting view of my hair.”

Many Nigerian millennials remember where they were when Agbani Darego won the Miss World Pageant in 2001. I remember a lot of rejoicing on my street when the announcer said “Miss Nigeria.”

For Oluremi, the pageant was one thing to be excited about but Darego’s iconic hairdo would be the thing with the lasting influence.

Many years later, she got into the hair business.

Oluremi’s business started with an Instagram page where she built a community of black women who wanted to care for their hair but also get access to wigs made just for them. She soon began selling wigs sometime in 2018 and eventually left her job after six months of running the Instagram account. 

In this week’s edition of My Life In Tech, Edwin shares the story of Oluremi, who made revenue of up to six figures in dollars by the end of her first business year selling natural wigs online.

PARTNER CONTENT

Increase your online sales with a Paystack Storefront – a free, beautiful seller page that helps you bring creative ideas to life.

🏾 Learn more at paystack.com/storefront

Egyptian logistics company Bosta raises $6.7 million Series A

Egyptian logistics company Bosta has raised a $6.7 million Series A funding round to scale its operations and expand into the Middle East.

Founded in 2017 by Mohamed Ezzat and Ahmed Gaber, Bosta provides a full-stack delivery solution for e-commerce companies. Its product simplifies logistics, allowing its customers to have full control over the delivery process.

Bosta currently serves more than 2,200 businesses, covering all of Egypt. Since its inception, the company has delivered more than four million parcels, half of which have been completed since the COVID-19 outbreak. It claims to have a 95% delivery success rate.

Read more: Egyptian logistics startup Bosta raises $6.7m Series A funding round

European Union announces support for African businesses

The effects of the pandemic have been hard on many countries, especially developing countries in Africa.

In light of this, the European Union has announced it’ll be rolling out initiatives focused on boosting youth entrepreneurship and supporting small businesses.

The first is the ‘Investing in Young Businesses in Africa’ initiative focused on helping micro, small and medium-sized companies across the continent take off and create jobs. 

It will do so by (1) increasing financial and technical support to small companies at pre-seed stage as well as to micro-companies; (2) supporting access to finance for startups at seed and early stages, and (3) supporting financial intermediaries, digital finance, the general entrepreneurial ecosystem and the investment climate.

Big Picture: Over the next seven years, the EU expects to invest €29 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

PARTNER CONTENT

The Launch of the biggest incubation campus in Africa is coming soon -The Unicorn Incubation Hub, Yaba!. The Unicorn Campus will set a new standard and address the challenges being faced by entrepreneurs, early startups, and early stage-stage companies across Africa. It will provide African startups with unparalleled access to the tools, talents and funding needed for success. Get ready. For more info visit www.unicornmaking.com

EVENT

Every tech ecosystem has a dream team.

On Tuesday, May 25th, the Afrobytes 5th Edition will gather tech and business leaders from Ghana, Nigeria, and Morocco to speak about what they are building in their home countries. The Pitch my Country virtual panel will hold from 1 PM – 2 PM (WAT). TechCabal will moderate Nigeria’s session of the panel. 

Find out more about Afrobytes 5th edition here

Google’s new product announcements

Last year, for the first time ever Google cancelled its annual developers/product launch event (Google I/O) due to the pandemic. To the delight of many, it’s back this year. 

The tech giant has so far announced over 15 new products launches/updates at the event.

Here are some of them:

A preview of Android 12

The latest version of the android operating system, Android 12 will offer more color and customisation. This feature is called a “Material You” design. It also offers some new privacy features, including a new privacy dashboard. 

Google and Samsung are joining forces

After many years of operating separately, Google and Samsung have teamed up by merging their smartwatch operating system into a unified platform. This should lead to apps launching faster and longer battery life.

Change compromised password

Hackers are working overtime to gain access to your passwords but Google is working harder as Google announced that it’s adding a way to change a stored password for a website right from inside Google’s password manager.

Unlock your car with your phone

Google just turned your phone into a car key. Select Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones will be able to lock, unlock, and start cars starting with Android 12. This feature will be available in new BMW models and other carmakers eventually. 

Health tool to identify skin condition with Camera

In January, Edwin wrote about how Oluwaferanmi Ogundipe’s innovative bot analyses and recommends products for black skin. 

I guess Google read that post and said we can do that too. The result: a new health tool that lets you take a photo of a problem skin area and answer questions about their skin type and symptoms to help you better identify skin conditions. 

Read about other announcements here: Google I/O 2021: Every announcement from Google’s developers conference

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