Online ride hailing service, inDriver, which allows passengers to negotiate the fare with drivers, has begun recruiting drivers in Harare for the service, which it intends to launch in the capital towards the end of this month. inDriver, which is headquartered in New York, has 26 million users in more than 200 cities throughout the world. The service is already operating in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The inDriver app is used by passengers and drivers to be linked up and negotiate fares. The app can also be used…
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New commercial 5G services in at least seven African markets.
Digital technologies are having a profound impact on the way people live, work, play and communicate. This is especially true in Sub-Saharan Africa where such technologies increasingly provide access to life-enhancing services for individuals and communities that would otherwise be excluded, due to infrastructure, skills and funding shortages. Key trends in the region’s digital landscape, including a youthful demographic and the increasing digital disruption of industries, point to growing demand for next-generation connectivity. It is universally accepted that high-speed, reliable and robust network infrastructure is critical to the growth of…
Read MoreFrench television company Canal+ acquires New ROK film studio
French television company Canal+ has acquired the ROK film studio from VOD company IROKOtv for an undisclosed amount. The company founded by Jason Njoku in 2010—and backed by $45 million in VC—IROKOtv boasts the largest online catalog of Nollywood film content in the world reports TechCrunch Based in Lagos, ROK film studios was incubated to create original content for IROKOtv, which can be accessed online anywhere in the world. Actress and producer Mary Njoku—IROKOtv CEO Jason Njoku’s wife—founded ROK studios and will stay on as Director General under the Canal+…
Read MoreNew Mobile-based online lending firms Regulations
Mobile-based online lending firms should be regulated to avoid their usage as channels for introducing illegally-obtained cash into the financial system, Central Bank of Kenya governor Patrick Njoroge has said. In a presentation to parliamentarians Wednesday, Dr Njoroge singled out Tala, Branch and Okash — three highly-popular digital money lenders — as credit-only mobile lending institutions that could be easily used to launder illicit cash. Money laundering, which involves transferring and disguising illegally obtained cash to make it look legitimate, is mostly used by criminals and the corrupt to clean…
Read MoreVenmo app has 40 million new users, PayPal discloses
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…
Read MoreMumsVillage enters ecommerce to help mothers earn new 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…
Read MoreGoogle debuts new Google News Initiative challenge
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…
Read MoreNew Startups and Partnerships, EurAfrican Forum
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…
Read MoreNew Swvl, Egyptian bus booking app raises $42 million.
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…
Read MoreNew: 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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