TechCabal Daily - Nigerian digital media company raises $600,000 in seed funding

Stears, a digital media company focused on financial and economic policy data, has secured $600,000 in a seed round. The Nigerian-based firm has received funding from Luminate, an investment arm within the Omidyar network, and from undisclosed Nigerian investors.

Stears publishes the financial publication Stears Business and plans to launch CoreData, its proprietary data platform, as the key product of Stears Data, the firm’s intelligence subdivision. Speaking on the investment, Luminate says Stears is “an example of a new generation of media companies that are challenging the traditional model of heavy advertising dependency and analogue newsrooms.” Read Abubakar’s report for more on the funding.

Amazon has opened its first data centre in Africa. Businesses can use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deploy workloads and store data within Africa.

An Africa data centre for AWS will allow businesses to process high volumes of data with minimal delay (i.e. lower latency). Organisations
employing dependable cloud services can discover improvements in process performance, data security, and flexibility in operations. It is also easier to scale operations across various teams especially for companies operating across several locations.

The AWS Africa centre is located in Cape Town, South Africa, and becomes the 23rd AWS Region in the world. It is the culmination of a series of incremental investments by Amazon in South Africa, beginning from 2004 when Amazon opened a Development Center in Cape Town. Amazon introduced Amazon CloudFront to South Africa in 2018, and now has three locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and recently in Nairobi, Kenya.

PalmPay, the Africa-focused fintech company, is waiving transfer fees and offering direct payouts to customers who have contracted COVID-19 in Nigeria. The company backed by China’s Transsion has dedicated ₦100 million (approx $300,000) for a PalmPay
Support Fund. The fund will offer individual payments of ₦100,000 (approx $250) to customers who have contracted the coronavirus.

Since launching in Nigeria in 2019, PalmPay has pursued an aggressive growth strategy. Peer to peer transactions by PalmPay users is free, while bank transfers cost ₦10. The company is working in partnership with Transsion to pre-install the app on Tecno, Infinix and Itel smartphones.

PalmPay will expand its support fund’s value by matching the total value of each of its customer’s transactions per month. The company wants to make customers feel like they are part of a humanitarian effort, ostensibly winning over more customers as a result.

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic and resultant lockdowns, there’s been a surge in digitalization and spotlight on some sectors including health, education and e-commerce.

Following the first edition of our Building in Tough Times series which featured Sim Shagaya, we’re hosting an interview with experienced investor, Eghosa Omoigui,
Founder, EchoVC. Eghosa will speak about the investment opportunities that exist and his thesis for the future. The interview will hold on Friday, August 24 at 11 am. Limited slots are available. Click here to register.

Bike-hailing company Gozem is taking inspiration from Asia to build what might become a super app for Africa. Prior to co-founding the company in 2017, Emeka Ajene had a stint at Konga where he led marketing and customer service, before another period spent at Uber. Both experiences exposed him to the challenge of running businesses but also the opportunities for innovation in Africa. The spark for founding a bike-hailing solution for Francophone Africa was born in those times.

This week’s My Life in Tech edition focuses on Ajene’s journey so far at Gozem and what lies ahead.