👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Pixel perfect

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PANEL FINDS RISEVEST’S CEO GUILTY OF SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY

Six weeks after investors asked Risevest CEO Eke Urum to step down due to allegations of sexual and non-sexual abuse, the panel assigned to investigate the issue has found him guilty of sexual impropriety and abuse of power.

According to a statement shared with TechCabal, the six-week investigation could not prove sexual assault. However, the panel noted that evidence shared during the investigation revealed sexual impropriety.

During the course of the investigation, the panel, comprising Odun Longe and Toun Tunde-Anjous, and chaired by Tomi Davies, spoke with almost 60 current and former employees of Risevest in order to reach a conclusion.

In response to the findings of the investigation, Urum said, “As a leader, I have grown a lot over the years and still have a lot of growing to do, which is why I’m going to be taking additional coaching and executive training. I regret the distraction that my actions may have caused and fully respect the integrity of the process the Risevest investors and the panel underwent to identify the gaps in our systems and my leadership.”

Risevest to audit culture and processes

Risevest also announced new changes coming to its company in a Twitter post made hours after the story was released. 

In a statement signed by acting CEO Tony Odiba, the company announced it would be auditing its culture and workplace processes in order to improve its teams. The company will also be hiring a chief people officer to oversee its people processes.

Zoom out: Moving forward, the panel recommended that Tony Odiba—who was appointed acting CEO when Urum stepped down—remain acting CEO pending when a newly constituted board of directors, including Urum and Odiba, appoint a new CEO. The panel recommended that Urum become a non-executive member of the board of directors, guiding Risevest on strategy and technology.

SAFARICOM LAUNCHES SERVICES IN ETHIOPIA

After numerous bidding rounds and finally receiving the licence to start its operations in Ethiopia sometime in mid-2021, Safaricom Ethiopia has now officially launched in the country.

Addis Ababa calling

Early September, Safaricom Ethiopia launched its services to residents of Dire Dawa, eastern Ethiopia. 

Days later, it took its network to two additional cities—Harari and Oromia. The services were fully-fledged, allowing customers to purchase SIM cards and airtime. The carrier also offered free data, voice, and SMS units as welcome gifts into its network.

Safaricom also revealed that Safaricom Ethiopia’s 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile services are available in 11 Ethiopian cities as of today. That number will go up to 25 cities by April 2023, covering 25% of Ethiopia’s 120 million people.

At the official launch, the Ethiopian minister of finance, Semerata Semasew, also announced that Safaricom Ethiopia has been granted a mobile money licence to operate M-PESA in Ethiopia.

Big picture: Safaricom Ethiopia has infrastructure sharing and interconnection agreements in place with Ethio Telecom, its main competitor run by the Ethiopian government, which launched pilot 5G services in May.

UPDATES FROM GOOGLE’S PIXEL 7 EVENT

It’s that time of the quarter when big tech manufacturers announce their biggest updates.

Last month, Apple had its Far Out event where it announced the successors to the iPhone series.

Yesterday, Google had its turn at the Pixel 7 event where it unveiled the latest Pixel devices. Similar to Apple, Google isn’t bringing any big changes to the table, but there’s just enough to get everyone excited.

So what’s coming to our screens?

Two new devices—Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro—and Google’s first-ever smartwatch, the Pixel Watch.

The Pixel 7 has been hinted on for a while but Google released full specs yesterday. The Pixel 7 is a bit different from the Pixel 6, and here are upgrades new users will find in it:

• The Pixel 7 is slightly smaller than the Pixel 6 with a 6.3-inch OLED panel compared to the 6’s 6.4-inch size. The Pixel 7 Pro is larger with a 6.7-inch display, same with the Pixel 6 Pro.

• The Pixel 7 will also be 25% brighter than the Pixel 6 so users will be able to watch night scenes on House of the Dragon without straining their eyes.

• The Pixel 7 comes with Google’s latest chip, the Tensor G2, which is reportedly 60% faster than the chip in the Pixel 6.

• Pixel 7s will also come with slightly smaller batteries; 4,355mAh is not that far off from the Pixel 6’s 4,614 mAh.

• The rear camera resolutions are the same but there are a few new features coming with the Pixel 7. Its main sensor can deliver 2x optical zoom, the Night Sight—which brightens photos taken in low light environments—works twice as fast, and the Real Tone feature has been improved. 

• The selfie camera received a bump at 10.8 MP, a significant raise from the Pixel 6’s 8MP.

• The most intriguing feature of the Pixel 7 series, however, is Photo Unblur, a feature made possible by the Tensor G2. With Photo Unblur, users can sharpen any old blurry photo and bring them to life.

The Pixel 7 starts at $599 while the Pixel 7 Pro has a set price of $899.

Google is Watch-ing

Google also announced its expansion into the wearables sector with the release of its smartwatch, the Pixel Watch.

At $349.99, the Pixel Watch is heavily integrated with Google services including Google Wallet, Gmail, Google Calendar and even Google Maps. The watch is run on Samsung’s latest Exynos 9110 chip with a 294 mAh battery that Google says can last up to 24 hours on a single charge. 

TC INSIGHTS: FUNDING TRACKER

This week, South Africa’s international calling app, Talks360, raised $3 million in a seed round extension. The round was led by HAVIAC. Other participating investors include Allan Gray E2 Ventures (AGEV), Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor and the co-founders of TymeBank, Tjaart van der Walt and Coenraad Jonker. 

Here are the other deals this week:

• Nigerian prop-tech company, Spleet, raised $2.6 million in seed round. The round was led by MaC Venture Capital. Other investors include Noemis Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Assembly Fund, Ajim Capital, Francis Fund, Metaprop VC, HoaQ Fund and other angel investors.

• Chari, Morocco’s b2b e-commerce company, raised $1 million from Endeavor Catalyst as part of its series A funding round.

• Kenyan agency banking company, Tanda, raised an undisclosed pre-Series A round. The investors include HAVIAC, DFS lab and three other investors.

• South Africa’s crowd-farming company, Livestock Wealth, raised $550,000 in an undisclosed funding round. The round was led by Mineworkers investment company(MIC), through Khulisani Ventures.

• Egypt-based IoT devices manufacturer CardoO raised $660,000 in a Seed funding round, led by The Alexandria Angels, with the participation of Sofico Investments, angel investors from Saudi Arabia, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

That’s it for this week!

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

GAME: GUESS THE WORD

Can you guess today’s word? Here is a clue: “Africa”.

IN OTHER NEWS FROM TECHCABAL

Google has picked South Africa for its first Google Cloud region in Africa.

Private equity investors predict entrepreneurial boom in Africa.

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• Big Cabal Media – Community Manager, Zikoko Memes – Lagos, Nigeria (Hybrid)

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• TechCabal – News Editor – Africa 

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There are more jobs on TechCabal’s job board. If you have job opportunities to share, submit them at bit.ly/tcxjobs. 

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