Africa Tech News

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume of transactions, Binance, has announced that its users will now be able to deposit and withdraw the South African Rand to and from their Binance wallets. Binance says this is meant to increase the region's adoption and mainstream accessibility of crypto. Binance stated that the service would be rolled out in 2 phases. Phase 1, which went live w...

Omnibiz, a Nigerian B2B e-commerce company, has recently secured a $15 million pre-Series A investment led by Timon Capital. The raise is structured as a $5M equity and $10M debt investment deal and saw participation from Ventures Platform, Lofty Inc, Chapel Hill Denham, Chandaria Capital, and Musha Ventures. Omnibiz provides retailers with a fully integrated digital platform. Retailers can purcha...

The company’s co-founders Monsurah Oluwafuyi, COO Muhammad Muazu, and Chief Product Officer Kamaldeen Ibrahim, say the company is providing a safer option for female drivers and riders while creating work opportunities for more women. They said the company’s idea came from their collective desire to change the reality that too many women get harassed and abused on ride-hailing trips. Become a supp...

Bolt, the ride-sharing business valued at $8.4 billion, almost witnessed a crushing fate to its operations in Tanzania due to regulations from the country’s authorities. Bolt has restricted their business activities to corporate clients only. Tanzania’s Land Transport Regulatory Authority mandated ride-hailing operators to collect a maximum of 15% from their drivers. Bolt agreed, citing that it wa...

A former Twitter employee suspected of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia was found guilty. The employee, U.S. resident Ahmad Abouammo, was also convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsifying records and money laundering. He faces up to 20 years in prison. According to the federal complaint, he and another Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, were approached by the Saudi government a...

The Department of Justice is preparing a second major antitrust suit against Google, according to new reporting by Bloomberg. The DOJ could sue Google as soon as next month, according to the report, which details that the lawsuit will be filed in federal court in either Washington or New York. Bloomberg reports that DOJ antitrust lawyers are in the process of wrapping up interviews with publishers...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is at it again selling shares of his electric vehicle company, per regulatory filings. The executive has sold 7.9 million shares, which totals about $6.9 billion. This is the first time Musk has sold shares in Tesla since April, when he disposed of 9.6 million shares, worth about $8.5 billion. Musk appears to be selling the shares to stock up on cash in case he’s forced to go t...

Snap launched the paid version of its widely used social media service in India, bringing its exclusive and experimental features offering to the South Asian nation for just 62 cents a month as it looks to supercharge its customer base by attempting to monetize over 100 million users. The launch of the subscription offering, priced in India at 49 Indian rupees, follows Snap introducing the $4 subs...

DataProphet, the South African firm, founded by Frans Cronje and Daniel Schwartzkopff, provides AI-as-a-service software in the manufacturing sector and is announcing the completion of its $10 million Series A round. Cronje, the company’s CEO, says that DataProphet’s focus on providing end-to-end prescriptive AI for manufacturing plants to improve their yield started in 2017. The company provides...

Nigeria spent $2.35bn on telephone importation in three years, according to data from the International Trade Centre. The nation spent $807.95m on the importation of phone sets in 2019, $765.57m in 2020 and $772.25m in 2021, the ITC, which is an international body that focuses on trade. The body explained that the imported telephone sets included: smartphones, facsimile machines for line telephony...

The Computer Security Incident Response Team of the Nigerian Communications Commission has flagged a new malware, HiddenAds, which has infiltrated Google Play Store that can impact device performance and jeopardise users’ privacy. NCC-CSIRT classified the virus as high in probability and damage potential first identified by the McAfee Mobile Research Team. The malware infiltrated the Google Play S...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says E-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo has received a $100 million strategic investment from Shopify. Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki says that Klaviyo and Shopify will strengthen their existing partnership by making Klaviyo the recommended email product for Shopify’s premium merchant plan, Shopify Plus while granting Klaviyo early access to i...

A ruling put out by the European Union’s top court could have major implications for online platforms that use background tracking and profiling to target users with behavioural ads or to feed recommender engines that are designed to surface so-called personalized’ content. The impacts could be even broader with privacy law experts suggesting the judgement could dial up the legal risk for a variet...

Digital Realty, an American global provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data centres, announced the successful completion of an agreement to acquire a majority interest in Teraco, a carrier-neutral data centre and interconnection services provider in South Africa. Digital Realty acquired the stake from a consortium of investors, including Berkshire Partners and Permira, in a transaction valuing T...

The Central Bank of Kenya has ordered commercial banks, microfinance banks, and mortgage finance companies to immediately end their partnerships with fintech unicorns, Flutterwave and Chipper Cash. Matu Mugo, deputy director of bank supervision at the CBK, says the two companies have been engaging in Money Remittance and Payment Services without licensing and authorisation by CBK. Flutterwave howe...

Nigerian telecommunications consumers may need to tighten their belts in the days ahead, as the Federal Government has concluded  plans  to impose a 5% excise duty on all telecommunications services ranging from calls, and SMS to data services.  The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, and National Association...

A technology company, Soft Alliance, has expressed its commitment to providing tech solutions and enhancing the growth of the Information and Technology sector in Nigeria. It says this informed its decision to partner with Huawei and enhance the growth of the sector. The Managing Director, Soft Alliance, Dr Bisi Aina, says its Human Capital Management Solutions, SoftSUITE and SoftPAY, were designe...

The Nigerian Communications Commission has committed over N500 million to the Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions across the country to facilitate research and innovations. Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta says the funds have been committed to research grants to universities and tertiary institutions, including professorial cha...

MTN Nigeria and Airtel in their half financial reports for 2022 disclosed that Nigerians are set to enjoy fast Internet as two telecommunication firms invest N443.30bn in 4G and 5G infrastructure across the nation. MTN says it has invested N311.6bn and Airtel disclosed it has invested N131.70bn within the first six months in infrastructure. MTN says capital expenditure in the period was N311.6bn,...

Executives at Netflix have announced that its imminent ad-supported plan will not allow users to access all the movies currently on its catalog. This comes after the streaming service company partnered with Microsoft to market an ad-supported tier in its subscription options. Netflix’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, maintained that though the ad-supported tier will contain most of the movies on Netflix’s c...

Google has relaunched Street View, the Google Maps feature that allows users to explore an area through 360-degree panoramic street-level images, in India more than a decade after it first rolled out the service in the South Asian market and roughly six years after the feature was banned by the country over security concerns. The company says it has partnered with local giants Genesys and Tech Mah...

A new report detailing the cost of mobile data in different markets across the world bears evidence of why internet users in most of Africa remain low despite the growing broadband internet coverage. The Worldwide Mobile Pricing 2022 report, which surveyed 233 countries, shows that five of the 10 most expensive countries to buy mobile data in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. Internet is cheape...

Meta announced that it’s raising the price of its Quest 2 virtual reality headsets due to increased production costs. Starting on August 1st, the Meta Quest 2 will cost $399.99 USD for the 128GB version, which is a $100 increase from the current $299.99 price tag. The 256GB version will cost $499.99, up from the current $399.99 cost. The company has also warned that it’s increasing the price for M...

Popular messaging app JusTalk left a huge database of unencrypted private messages publicly exposed to the internet without a password for months. The messaging app has around 20 million international users, while Google Play lists JusTalk Kids, billed as a child-friendly version of its messaging app, and has racked up over 1 million Android downloads. JusTalk says both its messaging apps are end-...

Vantage Data Centers has announced the completion of a hyperscale data centre which is located within its 80MW campus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The project, which was launched in 2021, was delivered in 10 months, 10 days ahead of schedule, with zero lost-time incidents over 1.5 million working hours. Justin Jenkins, chief operating officer of EMEA at Vantage Data Centres, mentioned that the p...