Category: featured

Payment app Venmo has 40 million users, parent company PayPal discloses

olivia Craig
payment app Venmo has ushered in 40 million users to the platform, its parent company PayPal announced

Popular payment app Venmo has ushered in 40 million users to the platform, its parent company PayPal announced on Wednesday. This is the first time PayPal has disclosed user numbers for the millennial-focused, peer-to-peer app. In its first-quarter earnings report, PayPal said it now has a total 277 million total customer accounts — including 22 million merchant accounts. Total payment volume for Venmo grew 73% year over year to $21 billion in the first quarter, the company said. PayPal said Venmo is still on pace to do $100 billion in…

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MumsVillage enters ecommerce to help mothers earn revenue

MumsVillage enters ecommerce to help mothers earn revenue

Isis Nyong’o’s MumsVillage has diversified into ecommerce to help mothers make money with the launch of MumsVillageShop. The move into ecommerce has been supported by impact investor Gray Matters Capital’s digital accelerator program – GMC Calibrator. MumsVillage also participated in the Unilever-DFID TRANSFORM partnership and Alibaba efounders Fellowship. “It is great to see one of the members from the first class of the eFounders program bring their vision to life. The program aims to empower young entrepreneurs to be champions for an inclusive digital economy, and the growth of MumsVillage serves as a…

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Google debuts Google News Initiative challenge for Middle East, Africa, Turkey

olivia Craig

Google on Tuesday opened the Google News Initiative (GNI) challenge for media publishers in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. The Head of Google News Initiative Innovation, Ludovic Bleacher, made the disclosure at the unveiling of the initiative in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Google News Initiative is a journalism-focused programme that will help publishers earn money and fight fake news. It will also introduce an open-source tool called Outline, which will make it easier for news organisations to set up secure access to the…

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Startups and Partnerships, EurAfrican Forum enables cross pollination of ideas: Dr. Precious Lunga – Baobab Circle

Search Results Featured snippet from the web Dr. Precious Lunga is CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Circle, a health technology company delivering innovative health solutions via phones across Africa. She will be joining the 2nd edition of the EurAfrican Forum in Portugal as a speaker.

Dr. Precious Lunga, CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Circle, will be joining the 2nd edition of the EurAfrican Forum in Portugal as a speaker, taking place on July 4-5. The EurAfrican Forum exists to explore and promote the power of diasporas as a connecting force between cities, regions and continents, between cultures, companies and people. It is an action-oriented gathering of leaders that aims to foster stronger collaboration between Europe and Africa to promote a shared green and inclusive growth for the two continents, fostering mechanisms for collaboration and creating…

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Swvl, Egyptian bus bokking app raises $42 million for expansion into more African countries

Swvl, an Egyptian app for booking buses, has raised $42 million as it looks to expand into other parts of Africa, including Nigeria.

Swvl, an Egyptian app for booking buses, has raised $42 million as it looks to expand into other parts of Africa, including Nigeria. The two-year-old company, which started in Cairo and also operates in Alexandria and Nairobi in Kenya, got the money from venture-capital firms including Sweden’s Vostok, Dubai-based BECO Capital, China’s MSA and Endeavor Catalyst, based in New York. “The plan is to be in at least two or three more African cities by the end of the year,’’ Mostafa Kandil, the 26-year-old founder and chief executive officer, said…

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Has your Instagram account been hacked? You can recover it this way

Previously, if your Instagram account was taken over by an attacker, recovering it would require wading through choppy customer support, or calling for assistance from white-hat hackers. Now, Instagram is rolling out new measures to help you get your account back more easily. On Monday, Instagram announced it is testing changes that could make it easier for users to regain access to hacked accounts, as well as security features that could make it harder to steal Instagram usernames in the first place. The news comes after a wave of Instagram…

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goAfrica partnership with Foxconn, iFP targets local market with cheaper iPhones

Ordinary Kenyans can now afford to buy iPhones at lower prices after goAfrica, an online platform, partnered with Foxconn and iFP to ship reconditioned smartphones to the local market. The smartphones are expected to retail at between 20 and 30 percent lower than what new smartphones cost in Apple Stores. “We are offering quality products to the market at an affordable price,” said goAfrica general manager Boniface Munywoki. The appetite for iPhones has grown steadily in the local market in the past few years, but the high cost of new…

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A world of new possibilities from Mobile apps to the blind and visually impaired

olivia Craig
Facebook

Ask anyone who was around before smartphones, and they’ll tell you life was different. But for Nutsiri “Earth” Kidkul, who went blind eight years ago, life-changing doesn’t begin to describe the impact of mobile apps. Before specialized apps came along, Kidkul would have to plan and prepare much more for basic tasks like grocery shopping, traveling or reading documents. What’s more, Kidkul often needed assistance from other people to go about her day. “I was always at the mercy of their time or schedule,” Kidkul says. Kidkul uses, for example,…

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Capital Market’s Authority Launches regulatory sandbox for Kenya’s startups to develop inTech products

Editor

Kenya’s Capital Market’s Authority announced plans last year to set up a regulatory sandbox for startups to join and develop their FinTech products and they have started accepting applications to the sandbox. Apply for the CMA Regulatory Sandbox for a 12-month period to deploy & conduct live tests on innovative products, solutions & services that have the potential to broaden the Kenyan capital markets. Eligibility https://t.co/mqDeIgZzcT | Application process https://t.co/v3sTqdjT1p pic.twitter.com/XeZ1F8QWJf — Capital Markets Authority_Kenya (@CMAKenya) June 6, 2019 First regulatory sandboxes have been implemented around the world in at…

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Global payments firm Adyen partners with Cellulant to onboard M-PESA on Netflix, eBay, Airbnb, Facebook

Editor

Cellulant has announced a partnership with Adyen – a global payment company, further increasing Adyen’s capability to offer its global merchants access to key local payment methods in major African markets. The deal will see Ayden, which replaced PayPal on eBay, bring mobile money platforms such as M-PESA, Airtel Money, Equitel, Tigo Pesa and MTN Mobile Money, as well as several online and mobile banking payment methods to eBay, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Uber and Netflix. Adyen will have access to 40 mobile money operators, over 600 local & international merchants and over 120 banks in…

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