TechCabal Daily – Meta’s pull out game

SOKNA RAISES $1 MILLION TO SCALE ITS FUNERAL PLATFORM

We often say there’s tech in everything, helping ease or simplify tedious aspects of our lives. There are fintech platforms digitising payments, ride-hailing apps that make transportation easier, and even e-commerce platforms softening buying and selling.

Would you be surprised to know that there are startups also catering to more delicate aspects of our lives including death and funerals?

Well, there are and one is Sokna, an Egyptian end-to-end funeral platform that recently raised $1 million to scale its services. 

Wait, what does Sokna do?

Everything dealing with funerals from body preparation, funeral rites, photography, hall booking and even procuring burial permits. 

The platform was launched in October 2020 by Ahmed Gaballah to optimise the funeral process for its users so they can be less  “consumed by physical, administrative, and logistical requirements”.

Sokna’s platform offerings include three packages—Basic, Standard and Premium—ranging from 4,500 EGP ($280) to 9,000 EGP ($560). 

Since launch, the startup has signed on 20 hospitals across Cairo—where it is based—performed 2,500 funerals and partnered with over 70 vendors. 

Zoom out: To scale its efforts across the country, it recently closed a $1 million seed round led by Silicon Valley-based Mentors Fund, SBX Capital, ACE & Company, and Kabnoury Ventures. Angel investors who participated in the round include Onsi Sawiris, Dr Khaled AlMutabagani, Ahmed Sadek El Sewedy and Farouk Kadous of ElSewedy Family Capital, Hisham Halbouny, Mo El-Bibany, Youssri Helmy, and Mostafa Amin.

META MAY BE LEAVING EUROPE

Last Thursday, in its annual report, Meta Platforms Inc. threatened to pull its products from certain parts of Europe. 

What’s going on?

It all started in 2020 when the European Union Court of Justice ruled that a transatlantic data pact called the  Privacy Shield was incompatible with European privacy rights. 

Side-bar: Privacy Shield is an agreement that allows companies in the US and Europe to seamlessly transfer users’ data from European countries to the US for storage. Simply put, it allows companies store data in other countries instead of having to build expensive data centres.

The agreement—like its predecessor, the Safe Harbour—was struck down in 2020 due to a few concerns: first, the EU was concerned that US intelligence agencies could snoop around data of European citizens, and second, European citizens have no way of filing complaints about this problem in the US. 

Oh, so what’s Meta’s role in this?

Meta is one of 5,000 companies that used Privacy Shield. While the EU Court struck down Privacy Shield, it didn’t strike down the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) it had been using to shift data from the EU to the US. 

After Privacy Shield was ruled invalid, litigants also went after SCCs. In 2020, in fact, the Irish Judicial Commission ruled that Meta may have to stop transferring data, using SCCs as a legal tender.  Meta sought to review that decision but its action failed. 

In 2021, the company’s 2020 report hinted at similar pullout threats, and its 2021 report reiterates that. 

“We have absolutely no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US in order to operate global services,” a Meta spokesman said.

Moving forward: Meta’s final decision is dependent on what regulations will replace Privacy Shield with. Experts, however, are confident that Meta won’t pull out of Europe where it makes $6.8 billion in revenue annually from ads.

STAYING SAFE ON TWITTER

Twitter has about 206 million users—less than Facebook’s 2.9 billion users or Instagram’s 1.5 billion users—but majority of abusive social media interactions, up to 88%, happen on Twitter. This ranges from doxing, to verbal abuse or harassment and trolling. 

In celebration of the 19th edition of Safer Internet Day—a day to celebrate safer global internet usage—Twitter’s Africa team has some useful tips to encourage Twitter safety, to promote #goodvibes on social media. 

Here are a few tips they shared with us:

• Block: Get rid of negativity—you can restrict specific accounts from contacting you, seeing your Tweets, and following you. 

• Mute: Don’t want to see it? Minimise unwanted noise by removing an account’s Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking it. You can also mute particular words, conversations, phrases, usernames, emojis, or hashtags. 

• Remove Followers: Curate your own follower list. Without directly Blocking someone, you can tap through to your list of Followers and actively remove that person from following you. 

• Sensitive Media: NSFW? Twitter’s default setting is to place potentially sensitive material behind a warning. 

• Hide Replies: Sometimes replies can get a little out of control. You choose who gets visibility in your conversations. If you believe a reply is off-topic or spammy and detracts from the conversation, you can click on the reply and hide it. Replies are not deleted but placed behind an extra click. 

• Conversation Controls: Not everyone has to be in every conversation, and you can control who can reply to your Tweet at any time. This feature can help you proactively manage a conversation without having to use Block and can prevent spam. 

• My DMs: You choose who can slide into your DMs. DM settings allow you to filter out unwanted messages and limit messages from people you don’t follow.

OPPORTUNITIES

• The Netherlands Trust Fund V (NTF V) is now open to applications from IT and agritech startups in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda. Selected startups will get training and coaching, participation in IT-related B2B matchmaking events and other benefits. Find out more here.

• The AllOn/NCIC Embryo Incubation Programme is now open to applications from early-stage Nigerian startups in the renewable energy sector. Eight selected startups will get $10,000 equity-free grants each. Charge up your applications here. 

• The Bayer Foundation Women Empowerment Award is now open to applications from female entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa who are driving positive change by bringing better health and nutrition to everyone. The Awardee will receive €25,000 ($28,000) for their work. Check it out. 

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