👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – The Future of Commerce 2022

CRYPTO MARKET: BINANCE ANNOUNCES GLOBAL ADVISORY BOARD

Bitcoin	$19,340	+ 3.78%
Ether	$1,333	+ 5.63%
BNB	$265	+ 3.69%
Solana	$32.78	+ 5.86%
Cardano	$0.46	+ 5.69%
Name of the coin Price of the coin 24-hour percentage change		Source: CoinMarketCap

* Data as of 04:15 AM WAT, September 23, 2022.

Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently announced the creation of its Global Advisory Board (GAB).

According to the company, the board will gab to Binance “on some of the most complex regulatory, political, and social issues the entire crypto industry faces as it grows and evolves at a fast pace.”

As crypto literacy grows across the continent, so does agitation for regulating the space. Across the globe, about 40 countries—including Russia, China, Egypt, and Morocco—have banned crypto or prohibited its trade citing reasons such as economic threats, fraud, or ponzi schemes.

To these countries, the threat is real. People lost over $14 billion to scammers in 2021 alone. This year, about $670 million has already been lost to several blockchain and protocol hacks.

Binance wants its GAB to tackle complex cases like this and help it continue to “deliver compliance solutions that protect the interest of crypto users”.

The board will be chaired by US Senator Max Baucus with members including Ibukun Awosika, founder of the Chair Centre Group, and Leslie Maasdorp, former MD and president for Southern Africa at the Bank of America and BofA Securities.

DSTV SLASHES STREAMING PRICES, LAUNCHES SMART TV

MultiChoice, the parent company of DStv, yesterday announced that it was reducing the prices of DStv’s streaming-only packages effective immediately.

DStv first launched its stand-alone streaming service at the end of 2020 to offer an alternative to MultiChoice’s satellite service for subscribers with good broadband connections at home, allowing them to avoid decoder and dish installation costs.

In the beginning

According to MyBroadBand, at launch, DStv’s streaming services were priced the same as its satellite pay-TV packages. In November 2021, MultiChoice launched a promotion on its decoder-less DStv Premium package, cutting the price from R829 to R699 per month.

MultiChoice has since increased the satellite-based service’s price to R839 while keeping the streaming-only promotion in place. From today, it has officially made this promotional price permanent for streaming DStv Premium.

Launch of smart TV

Multichoice also announced plans to launch its own smart television set. Called DStv Glass, the 4K flat-screen TV will be launched in 2023.

According to MultiChoice CEO, Calvo Mawela, the voice-activated TV is based entirely on streaming. No satellite dish is needed, only a broadband connection.

Big picture: The DSTv Glass TV is based on the “Sky Glass” TV range by UK broadcaster Sky which MultiChoice signed a syndication partnership with. The DStv version will come with the DStv app built in.

FLUTTERWAVE ENABLES GOOGLE PAY

Flutterwave, one of Africa’s fintech unicorn, is adding a new payment option for African businesses.

Yesterday, the platform announced the addition of Google Pay for African merchants using its services.

What this means

The 900,000 businesses using Flutterwave will now be able to get paid via Google Pay, Google’s payment app that allows users store their cards for Google in a digital wallet app that is available on supported Android smartphones, tablets, or watches.

In a statement seen by TechCabal, the fintech stated that the new method will reduce processing time, and has an average completion time of three minutes. “This integration is slated to reduce cart abandonment rate for businesses on Flutterwave,” the statement further read.

Google Pay joins other payment methods including PayPal, Paga, USSD, and Migo.

Zoom out: Flutterwave might be adding Google Pay to its service, but the digital wallet is not available in all African countries. Last month, South Africa became the first African country to get Google Pay support while other African countries are still awaiting the service.

TC INSIGHTS: FUNDING TRACKER

This week, Nigerian healthtech startup, Remedial Health, raised $4.4 million in seed funding. The round was led by Global Ventures. Other participating investors include Tencent, Y Combinator, Cathexis Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners Scout Fund, Ventures Platform, Alumni Ventures, True Capital Management, and angel investors Guillame Lussisano and Christopher Golda.

Here are the other deals this week:

• Ivorian fintech Julaya, raised $5 million in a pre-series A round led by European venture capital fund, Speedinvest. Other investors include EQ2 Ventures, Kibo Ventures, angel syndicates Unpopular Ventures and Jedar Capital, Orange Ventures, Saviu, 50 Partners and Ivorian business angel Mohamed Diabi and Édouard Mendy.

• SecondSTAX, a fintech company based in Ghana, raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed round from LoftyInc Capital Management and ORBIT54.

• South African e-health company, LocumBase, raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Grindstone Ventures.

That’s it for this week!

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements.

IN OTHER NEWS FROM TECHCABAL

TechCabal’s former editor-in-chief is connecting African content writers with foreign startups.

Nairobi-based accelerator, The Baobab Network, invests $200,000 in four African startups.

Bamboo expands into Ghana to provide online brokerage services.

South African mobile network operator Cell C has concluded its recapitalisation process.

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• Nexford University –Channel Marketing Manager – Lagos, Nigeria. 

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