Amazon alleged in a legal filing published that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional. SpaceX and companies that, like Amazon, have repeatedly faced labor law violations from the federal agency have recently made similar attacks that threaten national worker protections. Amazon claims that the NLRB’s ... more
Partech has closed its second Africa fund, Partech Africa II, at $300 million+, just one year after reaching its first close. Partech Africa, which originally targeted €230 million before its fundraising efforts started, solidifies its position as the largest fund dedicated to African startups. Amidst a backdrop of gl... more
Roam, a Kenya-based electric vehicle company has raised $24 million in equity and debt to expand local manufacturing capabilities in Kenya, scale up production at its new 10,000 sqm Roam Park facility, invest in research and tooling for cost efficiencies, and streamline local and global supply chain networks. The $14 ... more
Botswana’s telecoms regulator has warned the public against the importation, use, and resale of Starlink devices in the country. The importation, use, and resale of Starlink devices are punishable offences in Botswana, according to the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority. Starlink is not yet licensed in the c... more
Disha announced the product will be paused indefinitely from March 31, 2024. Its 100,000 creators have until then to migrate their content and profiles to other platforms. Flutterwave’s CEO Olugbenga Agboola says at the time, that he considered Disha the creator version of Flutterwave Store which now serves over 900,0... more
The country, in 2019, approved $433 million to bankroll a five-year project that would provide everyone with unique 11-digit identification numbers that would be registered to every SIM card. So far, about 102.39 million NINs have been registered. Security officials in the country’s tech capital of Lagos have announced... more
Oregon may soon become the latest state to pass right-to-repair legislation. Last month, Google lent its support in an open letter, calling Senate Bill 1596 “a compelling model for other states to follow. The bill, sponsored by a sextet of state senators and representatives, was inspired in part by California SB 244, ... more
Ethiopia is placing a ban on gasoline and diesel car imports, and express admission on electric vehicles. Transport Minister Alemu Sime, says prioritises both green energy and reducing dependence on fuel imports. The ban will involve smoke tests for current vehicles, with those failing considered unsuitable for road u... more
Kenya has proposed an AI and robotics law that includes fines of up to $6,250 for unlicensed businesses. The Kenya Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Society Bill 2023 introduced the fine to regulate and support the growing sector. The bill also outlines the establishment of the Robotics Society of Kenya (RSK), a pro... more
Ibrahim Ibitade, CEO of Leatherback, a cross-border payments startup that operates in seven countries, has successfully cleared his name following an intense episode with Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the EFCC. Ibitade deemed the EFCC’s actions bullying and is now seeking accountability for the agency’s lack of due dili... more
African fintech giant Flutterwave is seeking to retrieve $24 million illegally transferred in October 2023 through a combination of a technical glitch and potentially fraudulent activity by POS merchants. The fintech company will reach out to over 6,000 account holders across 35 banks and financial institutions involve... more
MTN-owned fibre solutions Bayobab announced that its subsea internet cable, 2Africa, has landed in Nigeria and Ghana. TechCabal reports that the cable was set to land in Nigeria in November 2023. The 45,000-kilometre cable is being hailed as the world’s largest subsea cable project, and Bayobab, which is backed by Met... more
The Space X-owned service which kicked off in Nigeria has snaked its way across the continent, launching in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia even eSwatini, all while avoiding South Africa. Starlink won’t acquiesce to South Africa’s equity requirement: that 30% of its company or any foreign company launching in the country must b... more
The Central Bank of Nigeria eliminated the cap on exchange rates quoted by International Money Transfer Operators. CBN previously controlled the exchange rate at which International Money Transfer Operators like Western Union and MoneyGram could sell foreign currency to Nigerians. The CBN previously allowed the IMTOs t... more
The European Union’s AI Act, a risk-based plan for regulating applications of artificial intelligence, has passed what looks to be the final big hurdle standing in the way of adoption after Member State representatives today voted to confirm the final text of the draft law. The development follows the political agreeme... more
CEO Stefan Ytterborn says Electric motorcycle startup Cake filed for bankruptcy February 1. The Swedish company was in the middle of a funding round, just prior to the filing, but apparently the withdrawal of an investor was what tipped the company over the edge. Ytterborn says that he had nothing else in mind but to f... more
MultiChoice says it will make a new $89 million cash injection in Showmax, its streaming platform, by the close of March 2024. The latest development comes as Showmax gears up for its February 12 relaunch. MultiChoice is now in talks to be acquired by Canal+ after the French giant offered to acquire all outstanding sha... more
Starlink has had its application to launch in Botswana rejected The low-orbit satellite service, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, was denied its application to operate in the African nation ahead of a planned Q4 2024 launch. The regulator says that the company did not share all the necessary information. It is unclear whic... more
Airtel Africa, a telecom company operating across 14 African countries faced headwinds from Nigeria’s naira devaluation and reported a loss after tax of $151 million in its Q1—April 1 to June 30, 2023 results. The telecom giant recently released its 9-month financial report ending December 2023, of a profit before tax ... more
Spotify issued its response to Apple’s new DMA rules, calling the new fees imposed on developers extortion and Apple’s compliance plan a complete and total farce that demonstrated the tech giant believes that the rules don’t apply to them. Apple earlier this week announced a host of changes that comply with the letter ... more
The Indian state government has fixed security issues impacting its website that exposed the sensitive documents and personal information of millions of residents. The bugs existed on the Rajasthan government website related to Jan Aadhaar, a state program to provide a single identifier to families and individuals in t... more
Sama which preps datasets for AI training, ensuring models meet high accuracy standards, now connects to three cloud storage providers: AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Customers can now keep their data on their preferred cloud and Sama can still access it securely, and train their models faster and more efficie... more
October Cadre Harmonise says an estimated 17 million Nigerians grappling with critical food insecurity, and an estimated 25 million Nigerians were likely to be food insecure between June and August of 2023. Ten Agritech Startups will focus on using these 4IR technologies to improve various agricultural sub-sectors incl... more
The African tech ecosystem continues to witness significant M&A activities in 2023, 30 acquisitions took place, including Bitmama’s acquisition of PayDay. Commercial banks are however way ahead of startups in this M&A game. Take Nigeria’s Access HoldCo, completed its third acquisition of the month. It acquired Nigeria’... more
Singapore-based Terraform Labs, the company behind digital assets TerraUSD and Luna, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware following the collapse of its cryptocurrencies in 2022. Terraform Labs, which confirmed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing, says the filing is a strategic step that will enable it to... more