CDP Institute

American digital infrastructure company, Equinix, has announced that it is acquiring MainOne, a West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider with a presence in Nigeria, Ghana and the Ivory Coast at the rate of $320 million (N131.6 billion).

Kenyan retail-tech startup MarketForce is expanding into five further markets and targeting one million merchants after securing a partnership with fintech company Cellulant.  Co-founded in 2018 by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti, MarketForce is a B2B retail marketplace that empowers informal merchants in Africa to source, order and pay for inventory digitally and conveniently, access financing, collect digital payments and make extra money by reselling digital financial services such as airtime, electricity tokens and bill payments.

South Africa-based crowd-solving startup, Zindi is using AI to solve real-world problems for companies and individuals. The startup has done that over the last three years they have been in existence. Just last year a team of data scientists under Zindi used machine learning to improve air quality monitoring in Kampala as another group helped Zimnat, an insurance company in Zimbabwe, predict customer behavior — especially on who was likely to leave and the possible interventions that would make them stay. Zimnat was able to retain its customers by offering... Read More >

GrubTech, a platform for restaurants and cloud kitchens, has raised a $13 million Series A investment. The funding was led by Addition, while other investors include BY Ventures and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund. GrubTech’s restaurant management system enables its customers to operate more efficiently as well as increase sales by operating multiple brands from a single location.

Dubai-headquartered digital asset exchange BitOasis has raised $30 million in a Series B round co-led by US VC firm Jump Capital and returning investor Wamda. BitOasis enables users in the Middle East to buy, sell and store crypto assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Tether, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and a few others.

E-commerce roll-up play Opontia launched in June, raising $20 million in debt and equity to acquire older, small e-commerce brands in the Middle East and Africa. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it has closed a subsequent round, a $42 million Series A nine months after it was founded.

Vervotech, a SaaS-based travel technology company has announced its collaboration with EaseMyTrip, India’s second-largest online travel platform, to enhance the travel portal’s end-user experience through Vervotech’s AI-powered hotel and room mapping platform.

Ernst & Young (EY) Australia and Microsoft have established a working group tackling Consumer Data Right (CDR) compliance deadlines for the energy sector.

Located in Sydney, the data centre is hosted by AWS, with regional customers’ data hosted locally. The company claims that the results will see improved customer experience from a faster cloud-based platform.

The acquisition of Absolute Analytics means that Uprise Digital will have one of the largest independent Data & Analytics offerings in New Zealand and bring the total number of employees to 42.

Alibaba has reorganised its international and domestic commerce platforms into two units to better drive synergies – international digital commerce and China digital commerce. International digital commerce will bring together Alibaba’s overseas consumer-facing and wholesale businesses under the leadership of Fan Jiang, president of Taobao and Tmall. It will include AliExpress, Alibaba.com, and Lazada.