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Good morning ☀️
It is the end of an era.
Microsoft is discontinuing WordPad after 28 years. If you are wondering what WorPad is, it is that app that you keep opening mistakenly when you are trying to open your Notepad or Microsoft Word on your desktop.
Layoff
mPharma lays off 150 employees
mPharma is parting ways with some of its workforce.
mPharma, the Ghanaian startup that manages prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and their suppliers, has laid off 150 employees. According to the company’s CEO, Gregory Rockson, the layoffs are in light of the current macroeconomic conditions driven by the naira devaluation.
ICYMI: This news comes after the company raised a $35 million Series D last year. In September 2022, the startup bought a majority stake in HealthPlus, a leading pharmacy chain in Nigeria, for an undisclosed amount. A year before, it also bought a 55% stake in Uganda’s Vine Pharmacy— the second country in East Africa after buying Halton’s Pharmacy in Kenya for $5 million in 2019.
The road ahead: The startup operates in nine African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Gabon, and Ethiopia. Now with a lighter workforce, the company says that the company will focus on its online pharmacy product, Mutti.
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Crypto
Binance global head of product resigns
The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, is facing another setback
Yesterday, the global head of product and design at Binance, Mayur Kamat, resigned from his position.
Why? According to Kamat, he is leaving Binance due to personal reasons and to “transition product leadership to Binance’s next-gen leaders”. Kamat’s decision to step down adds to a growing list of senior executives who have left Binance. The company also laid off over 1,000 employees in July.
Regulatory woes: These departures come at a time when Binance is navigating intense regulatory scrutiny in the United States. In one lawsuit, the SEC alleges that Binance provided false information to its customers and redirected funds towards independent investment portfolios owned by Zhao. If the regulatory agency’s lawsuit proves successful, both Zhao and Binance might face prohibitions on conducting business within the US.
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Funding
Anchor raises $2.4 million
Anchor, a Nigerian fintech company that provides banking-as-a-service (BaaS) solutions, has secured $2.4 million in seed funding.
The Y Combinator (YC) backed company, which became publicly known just a year ago after raising over $1 million in pre-seed funding, has now secured $2.4 million in seed funding. The round was led by Goat Capital, with participation from FoundersX, Rebel Fund, and existing investors such as Y Combinator and Byld Ventures.
About Anchor: The company provides developers with a suite of tools, APIs, and dashboards to facilitate the integration and creation of banking solutions.
How will it use the funding? Anchor says it has now hit over $550 million in annualised total transaction volume, with revenue growing 30% month-on-month. It plans to use the raise to bring in more customers and improve its compliance.
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Crypto
Pick and Pay gets more Bitcoin payment channels
South Africans now have more options to pick and pay with crypto.
VALR and Luno have partnered with CryptoConvert to support Bitcoin payments from their apps at all Pick n Pay stores around South Africa.
Last year, Pick n Pay, the South African retailer, announced its successful pilot phase would allow customers to pay for purchases using cryptocurrencies on their smartphones. This new development comes after CryptoConvert announced in February that its CryptoQR platform was active in all of Pick n Pay’s over 1,500 stores in South Africa.
Shoppers can also buy airtime, electricity, flight and bus tickets, and pay municipal bills with bitcoin at the till. The full rollout of CryptoQR across Pick n Pay’s national footprint came after a successful trial at stores in major cities.
Crypto Tracker
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$27,259 |
+ 0.10% |
– 11.18% |
| Ether |
$1,634 |
– 0.01% |
– 10.53% |
 BNB |
$214 |
+ 0.27% |
– 11.13% |
| Cardano |
$0.257 |
+ 0.52% |
-12.36% |
* Data as of 02:17 AM WAT, September 5, 2023.
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Job Openings
- FairMoney – Product Manager – Abuja, Nigeria(Remote)
- Smollan – IT Officer – Lagos Nigeria (On-site)
- Zeps – Backend Engineer (Java) – Nairobi, Kenya
- Kyosk – Country Product Manager – Nigeria( On-site)
What else we are reading
