Lagos-based Ventures Platform, one of Africa’s most active early-stage investors, has raised $64 million so far for its second fund, targeting a final close of $75 million, founding partner Kola Aina tells TechCrunch. Among the investors is the Nigerian government, through its Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) program, which marks the first time […]
Africa’s electric mobility story has often been one of promise over progress. Infrastructure is scarce, power grids are unreliable, and most markets still run on cheap imported motorcycles. But Dubai-headquartered Spiro has spent the past two years trying to rewrite that narrative. The company just announced a $100 million investment round led by The Fund
Spiro raises $100M, the largest-ever investment in Africa’s e-mobility Read More »
Y Combinator-alum Rulebase is betting that the next wave of automation in financial services won’t be about flashy AI interfaces, but the unglamorous back-office tasks like compliance. The startup, founded by Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, two Nigerian engineers who met in London, just raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round led by Bowery Capital, with
Y Combinator-backed Rulebase wants to be the AI coworker for fintech Read More »
Y Combinator-alum Rulebase is betting that the next wave of automation in financial services won’t be about flashy AI interfaces but rather the unglamorous back-office tasks like compliance. The startup, founded in 2024 by Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, two Nigerian engineers who met in London, just raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round led by
Y Combinator-backed Rulebase wants to be the AI co-worker for fintech Read More »
Khalid Ashmawy remembers the first time he wired money home while studying in Europe. He had just received his monthly stipend as a master’s student in Stuttgart and wanted to send part of it back to his family in Cairo. It was usually a slow and expensive process, he recalled. A $400 wire transfer, for
Chowdeck, a Lagos-based food delivery startup that has stayed profitable in a notoriously tough and low-margin market, has raised $9 million in Series A funding to launch a quick commerce strategy and expand into more cities in Nigeria and Ghana. The equity round was led by Novastar Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, AAIC Investment,
Nigerian profitable food delivery Chowdeck lands $9M from Novastar, Y Combinator Read More »
As generative AI reshapes industries, one of its most important yet invisible challenges is retrieval, the process of fetching the right data with relevant context from messy knowledge bases. Large language models (LLMs) are only as accurate as the information they can retrieve. That’s where ZeroEntropy wants to make its mark. The San Francisco-based startup,
It’s rare to see a solo founder building a widely adopted developer infrastructure tool. Even more so if the founder happens to be from Africa. Bereket Engida, a self-taught programmer from Ethiopia, is quietly building what some developers say is the best authentication tool they’ve ever used. Engida’s startup, Better Auth, offers an open source
African B2B e-commerce startup Sabi has laid off around 20% of its workforce (~50 employees) as it pivots from its original retail-focused platform to double down on a growing business in commodity exports. The layoffs, confirmed by the company on Thursday, are part of a broader restructuring aimed at aligning resources with what it describes
When Joe Kinvi joined Touchtech Payments in 2017 as head of finance, the Irish startup couldn’t afford his full salary. So he negotiated for stock to make up the difference. Eighteen months later, Stripe acquired the company, and that equity converted into Stripe shares, enough to let Kinvi leave his job, bootstrap a side project,
Stripe’s former growth lead helps African diaspora invest in startups, real estate Read More »
