Ecommerce merges Mums Village with Baby Bliss

Bliss Group Africa.: Mothering and childcare focused e-commerce companies BabyBliss Nigeria and MumsVillage Kenya have merged to create a pan-African entity

Ecommerce merges Mums Village with Baby Bliss Childcare-focused e-commerce companies MumsVillage Kenya and BabyBliss Nigeria Mothering have merged to create a pan-African entity, Bliss Group Africa, providing what they say is an “unparalleled omnichannel commerce, community and content offering”. The mum and baby e-commerce opportunity currently stands at an estimated $2 billion in Kenya and $5 billion in Nigeria. Thanks to COVID-19, the e-commerce market has experienced explosive growth. What began as a trend has now become a behemoth estimated to grow at over 60 per cent in both markets.…

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Twitter might just launch a subscription platform, hints job listing

platform hint job Twitter CEO Voice Tweets Gryphon

Twitter appears to be having a subscription platform for its social networking service in the works. A new job listing reveals that Twitter has a new internal team, codenamed “Gryphon,” that is “building a subscription platform.” Twitter is currently recruiting engineers to join this subscription team, with employees collaborating closely with the company’s payments team. Shares of Twitter (TWTR) rose 8% Wednesday afternoon following the posting. The job posting notes potential Twitter subscriptions would be “a first” for the company, but it’s not clear exactly how Twitter plans to implement…

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Opinion: Factors that will likely shape ecommerce in the second half of 2020

COVID 19 Read consumer

As we enter the second half of 2020, Dan Barker examines the key trends that are set to shape ecommerce, and how retailers can respond to them. The first half of 2020 has been eventful for ecommerce. Of course technical innovation has progressed: Shopify launched a marketplace, Google relaunched organic product listings, Facebook introduced ‘shops’, and thousands of other changes. But much of the first half of 2020 was shaped by a disease named after 2019. The effects of ‘SARS2’ on ecommerce are tough to overstate. Tens of thousands of…

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Power Panel at DCA WebForum voice their thoughts on impact of COVID-19 SME Financing in Africa

DCA WebForum Series 3 Executive Roundtable The Impact of COVID-19 on SME Financing in Africa

The DCA Group hosted an engaging and insightful Executive Roundtable conversation, with Top Industry and Business Leaders and Representatives of SMEs operating in African countries, as businesses and individuals globally seek solutions for the COVID 19 crisis to innovative ways to achieve their goals. The panel of distinguished speakers exchanged expert insights, practical approaches and good practices on the topic: The real effects on the ground for SME’s; the plans that are being implemented to curb further negative effects on the market; future strategies that organizations can rely on to…

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Afrikamart Agritech startup aims to be largest African fresh food supplier without owning any farm

Afrikamart Agritech startup aims to be largest African fresh food supplier without owning any farm

Senegalese Agritech startup Afrikamart aims to be the largest quality fresh food supplier in West Africa. The company aims to become the largest quality fresh food supplier in Africa without owning any farm. ITBusinessDirect spoke to Mignane Diouf its Directeur Général, here is our  conversation, In your own words, describe Afrikamart? Afrikamart is an outsourced digital purchase department providing solutions for its customers to help them source good quality fruits and vegetables in their local area or internationally. We leverage on digital to connect the different stakeholders on the value chain,…

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Mali based insurtech startup OKO Finance helps rural farmers access crop insurance

Mali based insurtech startup OKO Finance helps rural farmers access crop insurance innovation

Malian insurtech startup OKO Finance has helped many rural farmers to access crop insurance for the first time ever. Founded in 2017, OKO develops affordable mobile-based crop insurance products to provide smallholder farmers with the financial security they need, regardless of unstable climate trends. CEO Simon Schwall, spoke to ITBusinessDirect about their plans and activites, here is the conversation What is the story behind OKO Finance? Before starting OKO I worked for a very successful micro-insurance provider called BIMA. I was their local CEO in Papua New Guinea and Fiji…

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New tax on Digital Markets under new law

Tax

Kenya will start levying new tax on digital markets under a new law signed by the President early in November. The Finance Act seeks to broaden the Income Tax Act net to include income accruing through a digital market place. The law defines the digital marketplace as “a platform that enables direct interactions between buyers and sellers of goods and services through electronic means.” In addition, a similar change has been made to the VAT Act making digital market services subject to value-added tax. It’s not clear yet who will be affected or how the…

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Miss.Africa Digital program announces the fourth round winners of its prestigious Africa focused seed fund

Miss.Africa Digital program announces the fourth round winners

Miss.Africa Digital, a DCA Digital Academy, pioneering Pan-African program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust, has published the winners of the fourth prestigious Africa-focused seed fund award. Since its inaugural round, the organization has now covered a total of 12 African nations KampaBits of Uganda a youth based organization that exists to positively change the lives of vulnerable youth in Uganda was the 2019 Grand Prize Winner while BasaliTech, Lesotho and Ace Commmunications, from The Gambia both took the second category prize. The Women-In-Tech seed fund award is now in its fourth…

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Not coming to Ethiopia to Invest unless central bank rectifies the wrongful appropriation of diaspora shares – Sophia Bekele Eshete

Not coming to Ethiopia to Invest unless central bank rectifies the wrongful appropriation of diaspora shares – Sophia Bekele

The monies and profits confiscated from the sale of the diaspora shares should be returned in full Op-Ed By Sophia Bekele Eshete, Addis Fortune | July 20, 2019 The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) passed a guideline about relinquishing shares in banks owned by foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin in 2016. The majority of the public, particularly the intellectuals and legal experts who understood what happened with the sale of the shares by the central bank and the financial institutions, know that it was a huge mistake. Various voices have…

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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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