Search Results for: agriculture

Flying cars: Future of transportation or an inflated expectation?

Dianne Jacobs

It seems like flying-car startups are finally taking over the “140-character” kinds of tech companies we are used to. With EU-based startup Lilium working on an all-electric autonomous flying taxi, garnering a $90 million Series B led by Tencent and supported by a number of well-known VCs (including Atomico), it’s clear that flying cars are transitioning from a fascinating concept to a quite-mature technology and promising investment thesis. But will we see flying cars out in the world? And how will the market environment evolve? The ecosystem is maturing. There are…

Mobile tech and services generated $150 billion in Africa, 725 million unique subscribers expected by 2020

Staff Writer

The GSMA study ‘The Mobile Economy: Africa 2016’ was launched at the GSMA Mobile 360 – Africa event held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from July 26 – 28, 2016. The report highlights the increasing contribution of Africa’s mobile industry to the regional economy, including employment and public funding, and mobile’s role a platform for digital and financial inclusion. Industry overview At the end of 2015, 46% of the population in Africa subscribed to mobile services, equivalent to more than half a billion people. The region’s three dominant markets –…

VC4Africa Releases Its Annual Venture Finance In Africa Report

Dianne Jacobs
VC4Africa

The 2016 Venture Finance in Africa research has been released by VC4Africa and it shows that growing investor interest in African startups is resulting in tangible investments. Data from the 2016 research shows that the total invested capital more than doubled from almost $27 million to almost $73  million, secured by 224 ventures who took part in the survey. The average amount invested per venture also increased from $200,000 to $326, 000. The data from the report showed that in terms of the number of ventures, ICT was leading with…

Kenya: Safaricom, Seven Seas Technologies in joint bid for county ICT tenders

Staff Writer

Safaricom has partnered with Kenyan based ICT multinational Seven Seas Technology in an initiative aimed at harnessing the use of technology to offer integrated communications solutions to Safaricom enterprise and mobile consumer segments. In Summary Under the partnership signed Tuesday, the two firms will market education, health and agriculture IT management solutions to the counties. The Safaricom and Seven Seas partnership comes at a time when most county governments are adopting automated systems to get rid of ghost workers and streamline their financial platforms to seal revenue leakages through corruption.…

Washington: US to woo Africa with billions in new funding deals

Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The US will announce nearly $1bn in business deals, increased funding for peacekeeping and commit billions of dollars to expand food and power programmes in Africa during a summit this week, US and development officials say. President Jacob Zuma will be in the front row at the August 5-6 summit in Washington to which US President Barack Obama invited 50 of Africa’s 53 heads of state or government “in good standing with the US and the African Union (AU)”. This criterion has excluded Eritrea, Sudan and Zimbabwe. US…

Evidence is growing of Open Data’s potential economic benefit

Staff Writer

One of the key policy drivers for Open Data has been to drive economic growth and business innovation. There’s a growing amount of evidence and analysis not only for the total potential economic benefit but also for some of the ways in which this is coming about. This evidence is summarised and reviewed in a new World Bank paper published today. There’s a range of studies that suggest that the potential prize from Open Data could be enormous – including an estimate of $3-5 trillion a year globally from McKinsey…