CDP Institute

Nigerian startup Vendease, a digital platform that allows restaurants in Africa to buy supplies, access financial services and power their business operations, has raised US$30 million in an equity and debt funding round to consolidate its growth in Nigeria and Ghana, and to support its expansion across the continent.

Pan-African cryptocurrency exchange Yellow Card Financial has announced the close of its US$40 million Series B funding round, which will enable the company to drive exponential business growth, continue its expansion across the continent, develop new products, and advance strategic partnerships.

Ghanaian agtech Farmerline has secured $1.5 million equity funding from Dutch impact investor Oikocredit in its second close of the pre-Series A round. The new funding brings the total amount raised in the round to $14.4 million, including $6.4 debt funding.

Salesforce India will increase its headcount in the country to 10,000 by January next year from 7,500-plus currently. In the order of priority, the focus areas for Salesforce in India are banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, services and social services.

India’s Competition Commission (CCI) has said that any distortion in the digital market needs to be corrected promptly as India is emerging as one of the biggest and fastest digital economies. The government is examining the power of big tech companies on digital advertising, spurring speculation that India may seek to regulate their relationship with news publishers.

Checkmate, an Australian designed shopping tool that scours the web for best deals, has secured $5 million seed funding from Fuel Capital. Available as a mobile app or laptop extension, Checkmate finds deals and applies them at checkout, so customers can get last-minute deals. It also can manage orders, store gift cards and track deliveries.

Customers in Australia, India, and Japan will now be able to access Cloudflare’s Data Localization Suite (DLS) to help global companies and businesses based in these countries comply with data localization obligations. Cloudflare allows users to easily set rules and controls on where domestic data goes and who can access it. This is crucial in the Asian market where nearly 70% of countries have passed or drafted new data protection and privacy legislation.

Line Man Wongnai, a food delivery service operator, has raised US$265 million in Series-B fundraising, enabling its valuation to surpass copy billion and thereby achieving unicorn status. The move makes Line Man Wongnai the third unicorn in Thailand after logistics service operator Flash Express and fintech firm Ascend Money.

Business automation platform StoreHub has raised US$13.5 million in pre-Series B funding led by American venture capital firm 500 Global, previously known as 500 Startups. It intends to use its latest funding to continue meeting demand while maintaining positive unit economics, and investing in technology innovation to deepen the value for each customer.

Mexicans can put their cryptocurrencies to a new use: using them as collateral for a credit card. This is thanks to the card launched this week by local startup Crecy, developed in collaboration with Pomelo, a payment infrastructure and card issuance company from Argentina. Those who want to obtain it must leave Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, or Polkadot as collateral and will be able to access a line of credit ranging from 1,000 to 720,000 Mexican pesos (US$50 to US$35,000 approximately).

Argentina is the first market in Latin America where Bitso (Mexican Cryptocurrency Exchange) launches crypto payments through QR codes. This payment method will enable Bitso’s one million users in this country to pay their daily expenses from their apps at any merchant that accepts QR payments. To make a payment, the user can choose between Argentine pesos (ARS), USD stablecoins, Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), or DAI.

Oracle is confident of achieving a high growth momentum in India for cloud services and believes that it would continue to register a 25% quarterly growth rate. The company has set its sights on becoming the preferred cloud services provider for business across sectors in India. The company, which saw global revenues of $11.4 billion with a year-on-year growth of 18% during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, also grew by 100% when it came to India’s cloud infrastructure unit.